Message from the Queen

Lord Luce: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a message from Her Majesty the Queen signed by her own hand. The message is as follows:
	"I thank you most sincerely for your expression of sympathy in the great loss which I have sustained by the death of my dear mother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
	"I am greatly moved by your comments about my mother and by the warmth of your remembrance, together with your sincere condolences. Your thoughts and prayers are a source of comfort to my family and to me at this time".

Green Paper on Planning

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	When they expect to have digested the replies to the Green Paper on planning and to be in a position to announce their decisions.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the consultation period for the planning Green Paper only closed on Monday 18th March. The department has received over 13,000 representations. Following careful consideration of the consultation responses, the Government intend to make a policy statement on the planning system before the Summer Recess.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord has digested the lesson of the debate on the Green Paper, which showed the glossy paper, with a picture on page three of the heroic Mr Byers, to be a mixture of the good and the bad—the bad being cleverly sheltered by the good. How can we trust a department which, while affecting to dislike delays and to want to get rid of them, is itself responsible within its own domain for many unnecessary and painful delays? Secondly, how can we trust a department which affects to be concerned about the involvement of people on the periphery, but which never loses an opportunity to take power to the centre, leaving those at the outer rim neglected and out of touch?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the debate in this House was a very good and constructive debate, and we shall listen to what was said. Many contributions were made on what is a complex issue; namely, how the planning system can be made to work better for everyone involved, including the community.
	As to the department being guilty of delays itself when it seeks to make the system quicker, I entirely agree that, over the years, there have been considerable delays in relation to central government dealing with planning applications. That is why, on 2nd April, we set up a new system within central government to deal with those planning applications dealt with by central government, and to seek to do so in half the time that they currently take. It is an ambitious target, but we have to make the system quicker.
	Thirdly, centralising is most certainly not the aim of the planning Green Paper—far from it. The intention is to make the system simpler, so that everyone can understand it and access it; and to engage with the community more. Although there is presently a great deal of consultation in the planning system, all too many in the community believe that it bypasses them.

Viscount Astor: My Lords, is the Minister aware that Members on all sides of the House trust him? It is his fellow Ministers in another place about whom we are somewhat more circumspect. Will the Minister explain why county councils—which are, after all, the upper level of democratic government—are to be excluded from producing structure plans? It seems that that role is to be given to unelected regional bodies.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the counties have made a very real contribution to strategic planning. We are keen to ensure that the expertise that they have developed is still involved in the planning system. Structure plans, however, represent one layer of planning which we believe is unnecessary. We believe that what is presently done by the structure plan can be done at regional and sub-regional level and that the counties have an important role to play. But one does not make progress in terms of making the system less complicated and more user friendly by keeping or adding to the number of layers already there.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, in telling the House last week that there would be a policy statement before the summer, the Minister refused to confirm that a White Paper would follow the Green Paper to which reference has been made. Will he take this opportunity to confirm that there will be a White Paper? If not, how does he propose to consult and take account of the many views on this controversial set of reforms—and of the view that much improvement could be made without the root and branch reform proposed in the Green Paper?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as regards consultation, one of the reasons we issued such a detailed series of papers was so that wholesale consultation could take place on the proposed reforms; and so that, if necessary, we could make changes in relation to the proposals where appropriate. I did not refuse to answer the question. Noble Lords may recall that my noble friend Lord McIntosh prevented me from doing so on the basis that time was up. We have made it clear that a policy statement will be made. It will not be a White Paper, but that does not in any way inhibit consultation between now and then.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that last May the people of this country gave trust to this Government? The Opposition question whether they can trust the Government. It is not a question of whether the Opposition trust the Government—the people of this country have trust in this Government.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Absolutely right, my Lords. The people of this country expected that we would deliver actual changes in the way that they live and that is what we are doing.

Lord Renton: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord and other members of the Government try to keep an open mind about extending the right of appeal, which is at present limited to applicants only? There is a great deal of public concern that development takes place that is contrary to local opinion and needs, but parish councils which have often appeared as objectors, are deprived of any right of appeal. Will the Government bear that in mind?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, we think it is incredibly important that steps are taken to ensure that the community is properly engaged at the earliest possible stage. We think it is wrong to give third party rights of appeal, because that simply makes the process more legalistic and lawyer-driven. The noble Lord will recall my reference in the recent debate on planning to the experience of Queensland, which introduced a third party right of appeal and then had to produce another Act of the Queensland Parliament to free all the local authorities from the consequences of a precedent-driven system.

Humber Pilots

Lord Berkeley: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What action has been taken by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to investigate at least three serious incidents that have occurred on the River Humber since the new pilotage service was introduced on 12th December 2001.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch is conducting a full investigation of two recent accidents in the area. One of these was a collision on the River Trent on 25th February; the other was contact by a ferry with the jetty at Immingham on 22nd April. Reports will be published when these investigations are completed.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for that reply, and I declare an interest as chairman of the UK Marine Pilots Association. Is the Minister aware that one serious accident involving a tanker at Immingham jetty could have caused major pollution and fire? Why has that not been investigated by the MAIB? Will he also explain the comment in the report issued yesterday by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions on pilotage in the Humber that,
	"Local piloting experience . . . is not indispensable"?
	If local knowledge is not necessary, why do we bother with pilots at all?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, pilots require the necessary skill and knowledge to perform their very important job. We need to ensure that appropriate levels of safety are maintained when pilots are involved. My noble friend will know that the document to which he refers—I assume the one entitled The New Humber Pilotage Service—contains a table, at paragraph 8.16, of incidents occurring before and after the change. Those figures do not suggest a significant change in the number of incidents in relation to Humber pilotage. I shall write to the noble Lord on the third incident to which he referred.

Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware of the concern that few, if any, of the experienced pilots who were familiar with the Humber and its approaches are employed under the new scheme?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I shall have to check, but I understand that the number of pilots from the old scheme now employed under the new scheme is in the region of 14. The document placed on the DTLR website yesterday, to which my noble friend Lord Berkeley referred, sets out the experience since the change in the scheme. That does not suggest at the moment that there has been a change in relation to safety levels. We have to look at the figures carefully.

Lord Swinfen: My Lords, is the Minister satisfied that the new pilots on the Humber—not the experienced ones—have sufficient experience in handling a large variety of different vessels under different weather and tidal conditions in confined waters?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, these are vital issues. Again, the detailed study of what has been going on suggests that standards are being maintained. It is important that standards are maintained. We do not have any evidence that they are not.

Lord Greenway: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, quite apart from the most important safety aspect, the confidence of master mariners using the Humber for trading purposes is at stake? Can the Government use their influence to bring both parties to accept independent arbitrators to sort out the distressing dispute?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, confidence is very important, as the noble Lord says. It is therefore very important to consider the system based on the facts set out in the document to which I referred. Obviously, it would be best if any dispute were resolved, but that is a matter between the port authority and the pilots.

Illegal Meat Imports

Lord Rotherwick: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they are content with the detection rate of illegal meat imports.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the term "detection rate" in this context is not appropriate or, indeed, calculable. If the noble Lord wants to know whether I am satisfied that we have yet done all that is needed to minimise the risk of illegal meat imports, the answer is no. That is why the Government published an action plan on 28th March, the aim of which is to reduce the risk of exotic animal disease and plant disease entering the country and threatening our public health and our livestock, agriculture and horticulture sectors.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Will he confirm that, in 2000, the passenger luggage searched on 14 aircraft arriving from West Africa revealed more than five tonnes of illegal meat such as bushmeat and endangered species? Can he say how many people have been fined, and how many deported, for importing illegal meat in the past three years?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the figures which the noble Lord gives for 2000 are broadly correct. As he will realise, however, the detection rate includes the detection of fish and other species that are unlikely to have conveyed animal disease to susceptible animals in this country. In that period there were no prosecutions in relation to public hygiene matters, but two successful prosecutions occurred in relation to endangered species.

Lord Geraint: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we imported foot and mouth disease into this country last year? This year, we are importing illegal meat from foreign countries. We are also putting more restrictions and regulation on farmers than ever before. Can the Minister tell us what is wrong within his department?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the tone of the question suggests that the disease spread due to lax import controls, and that the most probable origin of the disease was illegally imported meat. However, the disaster of the disease was due to the rapid spread and mingling of animals before the disease was detected within this country. The two are therefore not related. However, the Government have taken steps not only to achieve better bio-security and controls on movement within the country, but also to give greater powers and priority to the detection of meat entering this country by means of both passenger and commercial traffic.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, does the noble Lord understand that there will always be a problem about a detection rate as one cannot know what has not been detected? What is the size of the problem? Can he assist the House with the Government's estimate of the broad scope of illegal imports?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the two parts of the noble Lord's question seem slightly to cut across each other. I agree with him on the first part; indeed, I made that point in my initial reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick. The same applies to the second part. I cannot give an overall assessment of what is not detected. I can, however, say that there is a serious level of illegal importation. The Government are directing their action plan to ensure that resources are properly prioritised to try to deal with it.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, with the haunches of gorillas and monkeys coming in, human diseases—frightening diseases such as ebola—also can come in? Is it not time to introduce more sniffer dogs, which are more clever than humans in detecting these problems?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, we are certainly examining its feasibility. Detection of all sorts—by machinery, by people, and potentially by dogs—is one way of tightening up on the controls. The noble Baroness is absolutely correct that the potential for passing human disease is one aspect we have to watch for.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, what is the maximum fine that can be imposed on those who import illegal meat?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the maximum fine for the import of illegal meat generally is £5,000, or two years' imprisonment, but higher if it involves endangered species.

Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that we have been complaining for 12 months about imports of meat to this country both by ship and by air. There has been singularly little result. Last month he mentioned an action plan. Can he say now how many more inspectors we shall have at airports and how many more for shipping? When will the pressure brought by those of us on this side bring some results? It is quite unfair that he has refused to hold a public inquiry which might produce some results. Moreover, farmers are thoroughly fed up with the Government's dilatory approach to imports.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I do not think that that is either accurate or fair. The Government have recognised that there is a problem of imports and achieving better checks. However, we have always made the parallel point—which not all of our critics have—that internal controls are just as important as import checks. As I have often said to the House, the issue is not so much numbers—there are multiple purposes for the inspections and checks made by all the agencies including Customs, the port authorities and others—but prioritisation and co-ordination between the various agencies. The action plan is directed to precisely that.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, we have discussed the issue of illegal meat being imported to this country. However, is my noble friend satisfied with our safeguards for the legal importation of meat?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am satisfied that the level of inspection in the commercial trade of legal meat is very robust. There is 100 per cent documentation check on all containers, and the level of physical spot checks on containers varies from one in five to one in two depending on the content. I am therefore satisfied on the commercial side. On the passenger side, there is the issue of passengers being allowed up to one kilogram, under European legislation, of meat from third countries. We have raised the issue of whether that is appropriate with Commissioner Byrne and look to pursue it at the European level.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I wish to press the Minister further. First, he has told the House that, in fighting the disease, internal movements are as important as preventing its importation. I question that. If the disease were not in this country, we would not have the problem. Secondly, he has acknowledged that it probably arose from imported food. If so, why cannot the European countries, particularly the United Kingdom, take note of what happens in foreign countries where the import of such meat in personal possessions is not allowed? Finally, will he please call for a public inquiry so that we can sort out the matter?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I have every confidence that the inquiries which the Government have initiated will concentrate on, among other things, the issue of import controls, and that they will do so rather more effectively than lengthy legalistic public inquiries for which certain Members of the House continue to hanker. Those inquiries will report by this summer. A public inquiry would take several months, and possibly years, longer. I therefore do not think that truth or effective action would result from that.
	I have now completely forgotten the first part of the noble Baroness's question.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. He said he felt that internal movement of the disease was more important than preventing its initial entrance. I chose on behalf of these Benches to disagree with him.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I note the disagreement. Nevertheless, the disease got out of hand in this country not because of a failure of detection—in legal or illegal imports—at the ports, but because the disease had spread across the country in the three or four weeks before the initial case was confirmed. Moreover, some illegal imports do occur in the countries to which the noble Baroness referred. There are very substantial illegal imports into, for example, the United States. So, however tight the controls, such imports sometimes get in.

Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, does my noble friend believe that the Government's action in regard to the treatment of waste food and prohibiting the use of swill has ended one very serious risk and the possible cause of the outbreak in the first place?

Lord Whitty: Yes, my Lords; indeed, that is the most probable way in which the disease entered the food chain. The ending of the practice as of March 2001 should close off that possibility.

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, up to 6 million containers enter this country annually, and 65 million people come into Heathrow alone. Does the Minister agree that the gangs who control the import of illegal food are essentially as terrible as those running the drugs trade? What have he and the department done to co-operate with the Home Office and Customs and Excise in trying to sort out the problem in a joint operation?

Lord Whitty: My Lords, that is precisely what the action plan is about—bringing together all the agencies involved. Furthermore, the secondary legislation which is now being considered by Parliament will give greater powers to the port and local authority inspectors in parallel with Customs. So greater co-ordination and everyone's involvement in ensuring that priority is given to the inspections is a very central part of the action plan.

National Insurance Contributions

Baroness Noakes: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What will be the cost of the Budget increases in national insurance contributions to public sector employers in the financial year 2003–04.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the cost of the 1 per cent increase in employer national insurance contributions to public sector employers is estimated to be around £1.2 billion in 2003-04.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, does he agree that at least £200 million of the increase will comprise national insurance contributions borne directly by the NHS? Does he also agree that the increased contributions payable by nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals will simply fuel their demands for further pay, thus diverting more money away from the NHS?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, first, I welcome the concern now expressed by Her Majesty's Opposition for public services after many years in which they have denigrated public services left, right and centre. In broad terms the figure for the cost to the National Health Service is £300 million, not the £200 million to which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, referred. However, we have to look at that in the context of an increase in spending in 2003-04 over this year's figures of £19.5 billion in total and of £6.7 billion for the National Health Service. In those circumstances perhaps the relative importance of these figures takes on a different aspect.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the fact that these increases are increases in national insurance is significant as those people who do not pay national insurance—that is, pensioners—are the biggest users of the NHS?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the increase in national insurance follows a good principle which has been in operation ever since Beveridge and the 1940s. The principle is that people in work should contribute to benefits and health services that they will need when they are unable to work. I hope that my noble friend agrees that the ability to pay is the correct consideration and the one which has been taken into account in the Budget decisions. Indeed, she is right that it does not and should not apply to pensioners.

Lord Marsh: My Lords, the principle of Beveridge was based on the establishment of an insurance fund which has long since passed. Will the Minister set out the simple and fundamental differences between so-called national insurance contributions and a poll tax on employers and employees?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not agree with the original analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. Ever since the 1940s the receipts from national insurance contributions have gone in large part to the National Insurance Fund for contributory benefits. From that period there have also been payments from national insurance contributions to the Consolidated Fund for the benefit of the National Health Service. This is not a poll tax.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell the House what the increase in employers' national insurance will be for schools, colleges and universities?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in general I am reluctant to go down the line of indicating what it will be for individual public sector employers. They must make their own calculations. However, the figure for schools in England is approximately £180 million.

Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister accept that local government as a whole will be faced with increased national insurance costs of about £360 million? That is the same sum as the extra money they are due to receive for social services. Will the Minister urge the Chancellor to ensure that in the Comprehensive Spending Review the funding available to local government will be increased to take account of its increased national insurance costs so that those costs do not lead to substantial cuts in core services?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have already indicated that I am reluctant to go down the route of giving figures for individual services. That is particularly difficult as regards local authority services which cover such a wide variety of authorities, departments and occupations. My answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about the spending review should be taken in the context of what I have already said about an increase in spending next year over this year of £19.5 billion. The principle of proportionality ought to be observed in considering these matters.

Lord Peston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if there is to be an increase in public expenditure—there is and it is widely welcomed—it is inevitable that it has to be paid for? To suggest that because we raise taxes to pay for it—which certainly used to be the policy of noble Lords opposite as well—that is somehow a problem surely cannot be the case. It is quite correct that if we are to raise public expenditure, we have to ask someone to pay for it. If they pay for it, they have to give up something else. That is more a matter of arithmetic than economics, but we simply have to accept that.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, there are two answers to that pertinent question. First, is it not remarkable under these circumstances that last night the Conservative Party voted against the Budget and voted against the provision to pay for extra services and has consistently refused to say whether it agrees with the additional expenditure on public services? Secondly, the proposals for increases in national insurance contributions from employers—which is the subject matter of the original Question—reflect in part the fact that it is to employers' benefit that we should have an effective National Health Service. Last year the cost to employers of absence from work was in the order of £10 billion.

The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the total revenue to be raised by national insurance contributions on employers is estimated to be £4.1 billion? At the same time is it not the case that, somewhat at odds with the claim that this has been a Budget for the NHS, rather more than this—some £4.6 billion—is intended to be spent on the new tax credits?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as regards the noble Earl's first question, my figure is £4 billion. However, I suspect that that is a matter of rounding. The noble Earl must remember that the increase which is proposed here is in addition to all of the other increases that have taken place. I said that there would be a £6.7 billion increase in health service expenditure next year. I can extend that because the figures for the period 2002-03 up until 2007-08 will be between £7 billion and £9 billion each year. We need to look at these matters in proportion.

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

The Lord Bishop of Bradford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice; namely:
	Whether Her Majesty's Government, in view of the extreme shortage of food and medical supplies and the emergence of gangrene among the wounded in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, will make the strongest possible representations to the Government of Israel to allow these supplies and a medical team into the church immediately.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, we are deeply concerned about the situation in and around the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We believe that conditions inside the church have deteriorated seriously although it is not possible to establish a clear picture. We believe that food, water and other supplies are running very low. Negotiations are under way to resolve the stand-off and on access for humanitarian workers and supplies to the church. The United States continues to press both parties to compromise and the EU security adviser is involved. Her Majesty's Government have also made representations to the Israeli Government to express our serious concerns at the highest level. We shall continue to do so. We have repeatedly called for both sides to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1402 which includes the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities.

The Lord Bishop of Bradford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and express my gratitude for the opportunity to put this Question. Having been able to get information through those sources connected with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Roman Catholic bishops and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, I understand that the food ran out yesterday and that gangrene is increasing. The Government of Israel have remained non-committal on the provision of food and non-committal on allowing medical supplies and teams to go in to the church. I understand that there are two dead bodies; one has been there for 11 days and one for nine. One of those bodies is that of a Muslim. The body cannot be buried because if it was, the church would become a holy place for Islam, and the difficulties that would arise from that are easy to understand.
	I also understand that there are now increasing rumours of the possibility of a mass suicide by those in the church who are known as "warriors". There is increasing concern among those in this country who work among Jewish people, Muslim people, Hindus and Sikhs, that what happens in the Middle East will have an unfortunate effect in this country.
	Does the Minister agree that this situation is appalling and totally unacceptable? Will Her Majesty's Government make the strongest representations to the Government of Israel to take appropriate steps to relieve the suffering, and to do so without delay?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, of course I agree that the situation is truly appalling and that a very serious humanitarian situation is developing within the church. We certainly know that food and water are running out. The right reverend Prelate believes that the food has entirely run out; he may well be right.
	We also know that there are injured in the church who are dying. The right reverend Prelate is quite right to say that the bodies of the dead are decomposing in the church, thereby creating a further health hazard. Her Majesty's Ambassador in Tel Aviv was in contact yesterday evening about this matter, as my noble friend Lady Amos said he would be. He spoke to the foreign policy adviser and directly expressed the concerns that the Prime Minister had about the situation in Bethlehem. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary plans to be in touch with Mr Shimon Peres later today, and I heard as I came into the Chamber that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will be in touch with Mr Sharon.
	I understand that negotiations on this issue, which began yesterday, fell apart but that they are due to resume at 4 o'clock local time today. Although the situation is very serious, it looks as though both sides, far apart as they are, recognise the need to resolve the issue.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, we are all grateful to the Minister for the very serious way in which she is treating the situation. The international community is gradually allowing a hell to be created in the holiest place of Christendom.
	Does the Minister agree that 238 people are locked up in the Church of the Nativity, of whom about 20 or 30 at most have been accused by Israel of terrorist crimes? Can she tell us what steps are being taken to make it possible for the people to be detained in some other place, possibly under the guard of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees? Does she agree that no forward steps can be taken in the negotiations to bring about a more lasting ceasefire and peace between the Palestinian territory and the Government of Israel until this desperate issue has been resolved?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that for many it is a matter of particular distress that such terrible events are taking place in a church that has a very particular significance for many of us. I cannot confirm the numbers of people in the Church of the Nativity, which the noble Baroness gave. Her Majesty's Government believe that there are around 200 people, although that figure may not be right—there may be more or less than that. We are also not clear about the number of people in the church who the Israelis believe are Palestinian fighters. Numbers of between 20 and 30 are fairly commonplace—I recognise them—but I cannot confirm them to the noble Baroness. However, I can tell her that a number of alternatives are being discussed at the moment about the ways in which those people should be treated. That very issue caused the breakdown of the negotiations, to which I referred, yesterday evening. Those negotiations involve some Palestinian dignitaries, the Mayor of Bethlehem and the Israeli defence forces. However, I am very sorry to say that there has been no meeting of minds as yet about how those who the Israelis believe have been perpetrating terror acts should be treated, but a number of issues are being discussed.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right to say that it is hard to make any judgments while the facts are so uncertain and there is so much propaganda. I hope that she accepts that we on this side totally share the concern of the right reverend Prelate about the Church of the Nativity, as all Christians must do. Is not the position that inside the church there are an unknown number of armed Palestinians, as we have been reminded, and a hard core of 35 to 40 terrorist gunmen from Hamas, Al Fatah and other organisations? In a more sane world than we have out there, would it not have been the right course—and would it not in history have been the right course—for the non-combatants to be allowed to leave and for the remainder to lay down their arms, which they should not have in a sanctuary in the first place, and to come out? Is that not the quickest course to end this horrific situation? Would that not be the sensible and fair way to proceed?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I could not agree more with the noble Lord. What he says is entirely sensible and right. The problem is that common sense is not prevailing in this situation. If it was up to noble Lords or most sensible people, we would be able to find a way through the situation, but the problem is that very entrenched positions have been taken on both sides. There was hope yesterday, when the negotiations began. There was a feeling that a solution was going to be found involving those whom the Israelis believe are responsible for very serious terrorist acts. No one underestimates the importance of ensuring that such people are dealt with properly. There was a hope that that could be negotiated. Sadly, the various means of doing that were not acceptable, on the one side, to the Israeli defence forces, and the propositions that they put forward were not acceptable, on the other side, to the Palestinians involved.
	All that we can do is to hope that the common sense to which the noble Lord referred prevails when the negotiations are resumed later today.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, does the Minister agree that despite all that has been said and the fact that the negotiations have not been concluded, if the Israeli Government allow people in the church to starve to death, their cause can never be advanced? That should be made known to the Israeli Government.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sure that the Israeli Government are only too aware of the importance of not allowing that situation to develop. It would be terrible for it to happen anywhere but, as noble Lords have acknowledged, in this particular place it would be peculiarly repugnant. However, there are a number of issues that we all know urgently need to be resolved. This situation is most urgent at the moment because of the immediacy of the possibility of the further loss of lives in the church. Indeed, I learnt as I came into the Chamber—just as we began business this afternoon—of a further shooting. We also very much hope that more progress will be made on the issue of looking at what happened in Jenin. One of the real problems with making judgments about this matter at the moment is the lack of reliable information. There is a lack reliable information about what went on in Jenin and there is a lack reliable information about what is really going on in the Church of the Nativity.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords—

Lord Avebury: My Lords—

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords—

Noble Lords: Order.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sorry that it falls to me to say that we are now past the time allocated to the PNQ and that we must proceed to further business.

Business of the House: Debates this Day

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper standing in the name of my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House.
	Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Dearing set down for today shall be limited to three-and-a-half hours and that in the name of the Lord Eames to two hours.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Tax Credits Bill

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham.
	Moved, That the order of commitment of 23rd April be discharged and that the Bill be committed to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Education and Skills

Lord Dearing: rose to call attention to the resources needed to give effect to the Government's policies for education and skills; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, my concern in introducing this debate is with the outcome of the forthcoming triennial spending review. In that context, I warmly welcome the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech in another place, when he said that,
	"education will receive the priority [it requires] to deliver further substantial improvements, not just in our schools but also in our universities and colleges".—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/02; col. 588.]
	I want to spell out what I see as being needed.
	Unless bold decisions are taken, I fear that we shall end this decade facing the near certainty of declining economic activity not only in relative but in absolute terms. We shall face declining national income, the prospect of more poverty, more unemployment and a goodbye to the aspirations for health set out in the Wanless report. History warns me that, in spite of high intent, we shall lack the resolve in the face of other spending priorities to commit to education and skills on the scale necessary for our economic well-being.
	I fear that the English in particular, in a way that is not true of the Scots, have never really committed to education and skills. Historically, action by governments has been a belated response to necessity rather than being taken because of a conviction that investment in people is the basis for creating decisive economic advantage.
	Perhaps I may go back in history to Trevelyan's History of England. Referring to the case for providing national primary and secondary education during the time of,
	"the fat years of Victorian prosperity",
	around the 1850s so as to make provision against the return of lean years, he says of thinking at that time:
	"As to education, Prince Albert, it was remembered, was a German, and popular education was a fad, fit perhaps for industrious foreigners in central Europe who had not our advantages of character and world position".
	It was not until 1870 that we had the Education Act as a belated response to the economic challenge that was then apparent from France and Germany. I could go on but I shall simply mention the scathing indictment, expressed in 1953, of post-war governments for their parsimoniousness on education and for failing to match developments abroad. It was out of a similar need to match the progress that our competitors had been making that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, as the then Secretary of State, introduced belatedly a catch-up in the provision of higher education in this country.
	I turn to those,
	"industrious foreigners...[without] our advantages of character and world position".
	In a debate on 10th April, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, told us that, compared with the 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product that we invested in this country in 1998, in Germany the figure was 5.5 per cent, in France, 6.2 per cent, and in the USA, 6.4 per cent. Those figures did not surprise me. But what did surprise me were figures given in the other place which indicated that the proportion of our gross domestic product spent on education last year was no more than it was 10 years ago.
	I was even more surprised—I cannot believe it—that, in the early days of a government committed to education, that percentage was falling. It is rising only now, with the aim to achieve 5.2 per cent by 2003-04. That is still way below where the French, Germans and Americans were in 1998, and I guess that they have not been standing still.
	I turn to the results of that in terms of the educational skills capital of our people. If I remember the figures correctly, in this country when these comparisons were being made in 1998, 55 per cent were at NVQ Level II—that is, GCSE; in France, the figure was 72 per cent; and in Germany, 83 per cent. At the crucial Level III, whereas the Germans were at 74 per cent, we were at half that level.
	The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, in making productivity comparisons across nations, looked at France, Germany, the USA and the UK. Where did we come? Of course, we came bottom. What did the institute attribute it to? Lack of investment in skills, education and, of course, capital.
	I have referred to the comparisons with our traditional competitors—those, perhaps, whom the Victorians would have had in mind. But, looking ahead and examining the figures, I believe that increasingly we must consider the 40 per cent of the world's population that lives in India and China. The growth rates of those countries over the past decade were, in one case, 6 per cent a year and, in the other, 8 per cent a year. When the other young Asian tigers trembled in 1998, they hardly blinked; their economies marched on.
	China is emerging increasingly as a world economic power. According to the figures, it is now seventh in the world league. Let us just think where it could be by the end of this decade. We see references to India as the "back office of the world", with investment in information technology increasing at 50 per cent a year over the past decade. These are clever, industrious people who, the World Bank warns, at the end of this decade will still be paid only a reasonable fraction of our wage rates. Therefore, how shall we compete? There is only one way and that is by moving up-market.
	The English language, in becoming the international language, exposes us more than other nations. Not only is the manufacturing sector at risk but the service sector is also. Therefore, we are doubly vulnerable.
	Over the weekend I read the annual report of a company that I know well. The report commented, in a small sentence with no great emphasis, that the company would be outsourcing to other countries, transferring 30 per cent of its production to two new factories in Mexico and to China and eastern Europe. That is only one example. We read of the insurance industry and call centres. I believe that one of them employs 60,000 people and is talking of transferring to India. I could continue with such examples.
	If we are to address this situation in a meaningful way, I believe that we must look again at the proportion of our national income—our gross domestic product—that we invest in education and skills. The main point that I want to make in this debate is that, whereas we have been thinking of increasing that investment by 0.1 per cent as a share of GDP, in the next triennial review we must move to an increase of 0.2 per cent a year—that is, double the present rate.
	An increase from 0.1 to 0.2 per cent does not sound very much, but it is big money. Assuming that GDP grows at 2.5 per cent a year, with that change there would be an increased contribution of £3 billion in the first year, £5 billion in the second year and £8 billion in the third year, making, if my arithmetic is correct, a total of £16 billion. But I emphasise that that is a minimum amount.
	I have looked at the proposals made to the Government in the context of the triennial review from the Association of Colleges, which is bidding for an extra £5 billion, and the Local Government Association, which is bidding for an extra £8 billion for schools. The universities are bidding for an extra £10 billion. That is much more than my £16 billion. They are not the only people in the game. I repeat that that is the minimum figure which we need to consider in the triennial review.
	In arguing for increased resources, those institutions owe it to the nation to use such resources effectively. In general, I believe they do. For example, who has done better than British higher education in reducing the unit of resource for teaching by 40 per cent over the past 25 years? That is impressive for a labour-intensive industry if we consider the hours which our teachers work and the low cost of further education. There are faults, which I could identify, but basically those institutions are using funds well. My point is that a consistent, sustained policy of which people know in advance can be rationally and carefully planned. We do not need adventurous initiatives but a sustained, well-directed investment programme in our field.
	I am grateful to the number of noble Lords who have decided to engage in this debate. Others will speak more authoritatively than me on particular dimensions of the need for greater investment in our people. However, I should like to illustrate some. I begin, because too often we put skills at the back of the queue, by stating the need to back the Cassels committee recommendations on skills and apprenticeships.
	We need to lift the numbers staying on after 16 and avoid drop-outs at 17. We must bear in mind that the proportion of those in education and skills at 17 has not increased in a decade. We must pursue vocational education, in particular through our FE colleges in partnership with schools, increasingly from the age of 14.
	We must address the plight of the 20 per cent of our children whom society fails at school: the truants, the drop-outs, and the disaffected from whom society reaps a bitter harvest. We must recognise the need to see our FE colleges as the powerhouse of the skills economy. We treat them as the Cinderella at our peril. We cannot expect to remedy our longstanding skills deficit on the cheap. We must act on the advice of the national skills council that 80 per cent of the new jobs emerging over the decade will require a higher level of educational attainment, whether in FE colleges or higher education. We must respond to the needs of our teachers and schools at all levels; the pay issue will not go away.
	We must not "do a railways" on education by denying it the capital resource that it needs. I have summarised the figures. We must stay with the policy of aiming for a participation rate of 50 per cent in higher education by the end of the decade and recognise that much of that can be achieved by partnerships between higher and further education. In doing that we must recognise that by engaging more young people who do not come from the traditional backgrounds for such education, there will be a cost.
	At this point I declare an interest as patron of the University for Industry. The Government should keep faith with their vision for the University of Industry—which is now beginning to motor—as a flagship for a nation committed to life-long learning. I hope that the Government will want to make life-long learning a defining achievement of their term of office.
	I conclude by coming back to Trevelyan. He lamented that the Victorians did not use the fat years to invest against the lean years he saw to come by investing in our people. We must accept that competitive advantage lies in investing in our people. The philosopher Santayana said—I do not know his work well, but I recall one sentence of his writing—that those who do not remember the past are condemned to revisit the past. We must remember our past, which I briefly summarised. We must in our time heed Trevelyan's admonition and use the years ahead of economic growth to navigate our way in a world in which the economic hegemony of the West is no longer a law of nature.
	Accordingly, I urge the Government to ensure that the resources needed for education and skills are provided. They must recognise that that means increasing the share of GDP they receive by at least 0.2 per cent per year; 0.1 per cent simply will not do. Investment in people must be grasped as the decisive basis of economic advantage, not as a belated response beaten out of us by the competition. We are behind the game. We must now, for the first time in our history, play to win. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Puttnam: My Lords, I should begin by declaring a number of interests—among them chancellor of the University of Sunderland and chairman of the General Teaching Council—but today I shall speak unequivocally in a personal capacity.
	I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this debate. It is especially timely and as such doubly valuable. His opening remarks about the need to remain competitive in the face of challenges from not just the "established tigers" but other nations such as China and India are ones that I particularly echo. I shall also attempt to enlarge on the noble Lord's observations and, indeed, his statistics regarding the need to sustain a commitment to increased expenditure.
	In preparing for today's debate—courtesy of our rather wonderful Library and its staff—I discovered something which I found astonishing. Prior to 1960 the UK was spending a higher proportion of its GDP on education than almost any comparable nation. But, a generation later, a 24-nation study by the OECD showed the UK spending less of its GDP on education than any other comparable country. That is extraordinary. No such similar reduction in any sector's share of this nation's resources has ever occurred. Nor, indeed, has it been experienced in any other developed nation in the world. To echo the noble Lord, Lord Dearing: what on earth did we think we were doing?
	Prior to the First World War, it was felt sufficient to spend some 1 per cent of GDP on education. Lord knows, even that 1 per cent was hard fought for. The inter-war years saw an increase to about 3 per cent. That, in turn accelerated in the fifties and sixties to a point at which in 1975 it had reached 6.3 per cent. It then collapsed before settling at less than 5 per cent for a decade or so.
	I accept that GDP fluctuated during those years but, as with our health service, the overall damage has proved inescapable: massive under-investment during the very years when the rest of the developed world was pouring sometimes scarce resources and energy into creating education and health systems equal to the extremely tough challenges of the modern world.
	Will any Member of your Lordships' House who believes it possible to slash investment in education and yet develop as a coherent and competitive nation please raise a hand? Is there anyone in the House today who seriously believes it possible to reduce public spending on education and maintain any credible ambition for productivity and growth, let alone promote those more generous civic ambitions, which most of us share?
	The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, implores us not to "do a railways on education". I fear that in some sense we did a railways on education in the late seventies and eighties and we are only just seeking to recover. The real analogy here should be with investment in health. I am not suggesting any diminution in last week's brave and timely funding commitment. But it was only in the early 1990s that expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP began to rise faster than that on education. One of the principal reasons for that—probably the major reason—was the necessity to invest in new, highly sophisticated and expensive technologies. There was a recognition that technology had the capacity to transform medicine in many respects. That in turn required massive injections of capital.
	Education is now facing a precisely similar challenge. If we are to have any chance whatever of being competitive with those new economic tigers, never mind the established nations, we have to invest in the people—that is to say the professionals—and the technology that will help to deliver the education system we badly need. We must invest and, as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said, we must invest unstintingly.
	The argument in favour of investment in education is ultimately, in my judgment, even more compelling than that for health. Whereas the state of an individual's health is, above all, a matter of personal and family concern, the quality of a nation's education has consequences not just for the individual and those whose lives revolve around them, but, more broadly, for the whole of society. As the noble Lord, Lord Moser, once memorably observed, unlike all other areas of public expenditure, education alone is both the "cause and the consequence of national success".
	However, we have a choice. We can go on indulging the fantasy that, as a result of those "efficiency savings" that opposition parties are always so fond of promising, we can have a world-class education service at present levels of investment—or maybe even less. In the past four years I have visited 320 schools. I am sure that there are some savings, but they are really at the candle's end.
	The other alternative is that we can grow up, dig deep and remind ourselves of our determination to give our children brighter, fairer and genuinely more fulfilling lives. I know of no other way of guaranteeing ourselves a successful and sustainable future as a nation.

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I too am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for securing this debate and for giving us the opportunity to look at an issue of such importance to the future prosperity of the United Kingdom. In discussing education and skills policy, we must be careful because policies in England are sometimes different from those in Scotland or Wales, as many employers sometimes discover to their confusion.
	I should like to concentrate my short remarks on the future role of vocational education and training, which is an issue in which I believe passionately. It is also a key concern of the Engineering and Marine Training Authority of which I have the honour to be chairman.
	The Government's most recent statement on education and skills is the Green Paper relating to 14 to 19 year-olds. It is a significant document in setting the agenda for the future of education and skills. There is much to be welcomed in it. At long last, the language that we are hearing is moving away from the notion that the academic route is for the bright ones and the remainder should consider a vocational option. We shall only encourage the brightest of young people to consider seeking vocational qualifications if we are able to persuade them—and especially their parents—that they will not be disadvantaged by so doing.
	Industry needs to attract people with a diversity of skills; both those who enter after completing a higher education course and the potential technician. The evidence from the introduction of the GNVQ shows that young people following such programmes from the age of 14 develop a significantly more positive attitude towards engineering, which is my special interest.
	That is demonstrated not only by an increased interest in entering engineering work-based learning at the age of 16 and above, but also for those following the A-level pathway there is a greater likelihood of choosing an engineering degree course or engineering career at a later stage.
	So-called vocational GCSEs will become a reality in September when GCSE engineering becomes available to schools. It is a course that has been designed with the support of the engineering employers. I am pleased that the EMTA has been able to work very closely with both the Department for Education and Skills and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in its design.
	For this qualification to be a success, appropriate financial resourcing is essential. Teachers will need help, support and additional training in order to be able to deliver a wider range of specialisms and cross-curricular activities in which they may have had little previous experience.
	In addition to the financial resources, we also need to persuade those advising young people of its benefits. I have already mentioned the influence of parents, but the quality and effectiveness of careers advice is another factor. Teachers are very influential in advising young people on careers. Yet many have not had the opportunity of working in industry and therefore do not appreciate the opportunities available. Perhaps I may suggest to the Minister that it would be helpful for some teachers to use their five statutory "Inset" days to increase their awareness and understanding of industry and commerce. In the case of engineering, it will be necessary for schools to work in partnership with work-based training providers, colleges of further education and employers.
	For the GCSE engineering qualification to have any significant impact, the target required is that 350 schools should be offering this GCSE by the year 2005—indeed, every one of those schools visited by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, in the past few years.
	Since its introduction by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral—I am not sure whether he is in his place—in 1994, the modern apprenticeship route has had a significant impact on the number of people entering the engineering industry. The recruitment needs of that industry require about 33,000 modern apprenticeships to be in training at any one time. In 1994, the number of apprentices in training was about 8,000. Today it is 22,000, of whom 18,000 are in England, 1,500 in Wales and around 2,000 in Scotland. While we have not reached the required number, we are surely moving in the right direction.
	Engineering work-based learning was almost universally seriously under-funded under the training and enterprise council system, although payments varied from TEC to TEC, and a small minority of TECs operated a system of differential funding between sectors which resulted in a reasonably realistic and equitable payment for engineering. But the majority did not, resulting in serious under-funding and great disparity between different TECs.
	The majority of TECs paid an average of £6,000 to £7,000 over the three to four-year period for an advanced modern apprenticeship in engineering, although some paid a good deal less. The direct costs of education and training for an engineering modern apprenticeship, excluding any direct employer costs, such as trainee wages and work-based supervisor, trainer or mentor costs, are between £13,000 and £16,000, depending on the level and complexity of the training.
	Given that background, one might expect the engineering community to be pleased with the national rate for an engineering modern apprenticeship set by the Learning and Skills Council of £12,130. The reality is that, for the moment anyway, few, if any, employers or training providers receive anything like that amount because of cushioning and damping arrangements introduced for 2001 and 2002.
	There is now a new set of arrangements for funding modern apprenticeships, with the funding being made available by the LSCs, recognising the expense to employers of providing places and the higher value-added outcomes. However, in England the funding is only available for the training of 16 to 18 year-olds. For those employers who train people over the age of 19 years of age, the funding available is only 56 per cent of the national rate. The industry is particularly keen to attract people aged 19 and above. This funding is not available at all for those over the age of 25, except in Wales.
	So the engineering industry continues to take its concerns about these arrangements directly to the LSC. But, in closing, perhaps I may urge the Minister to reinforce the concerns of the industry.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this debate and for giving us the opportunity to question the Government's track record and future intentions in relation to the resources needed to provide this country with a world-class education system.
	The Government claimed in 1997 that the priorities for their first term of office would be "Education, education, education". However, as the noble Lords, Lord Dearing and Lord Puttnam, have mentioned, the resources devoted to education as a percentage of GDP have fallen during their term of office. That says a good deal about the Government's actual priority as distinct from their election rhetoric.
	In its first term Labour squeezed education spending to its lowest share of national income for 40 years. The Labour spin machine has done its best to mask that. The notorious £19 billion additional investment announced in the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review was derived through double and treble counting. When inflation was taken into account the £19 billion figure fell to just £6.1 billion. Less than half of the £17 billion for school repairs announced since September 2000 will materialise.
	Reform in the primary sector was supposed to be the success story of Labour's first term. It pledged to reduce the maximum class size to 30. In April last year, more than 1,000 five to seven year-olds were still in classes of 30 or more. The squeeze, where successful, has been at the expense of other age groups. Parents whose children were five in 1997 now see their nine year-olds suffering the consequences. Secondary school class sizes are now larger than they have been for 20 years.
	As with many things, good education is built on good foundations. That should be found in the early years setting. Although the Government have put additional resources into nursery education, there is still a long way to go and there are questions about the quality of much provision. There can be few better investments for the Government in the education sector than raising skill levels in early years. Money is coming in now, but the so-called prudent policies of the Government's first term left many children with either no place or a place where the staff had low levels of qualification.
	In addition, many of the problems found in other parts of the education system are seeping down to early years. Classroom disruption is an increasing problem and the age at which it becomes an issue of concern is falling. Early intervention is essential. That requires continuing professional development for teachers, with consequent resource implications and extra cash for on and off-site intervention units.
	Many discipline problems are the result of issues outside the school that affect children's ability to cope with the stresses of school life. I have just returned from a visit to Japan during which I visited a school and was amazed to learn that every school has a professional adult school counsellor available on the staff to advise and support children and teachers. How wonderful it would be if we could have the same provision here.
	Instead, we have charities such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with which I have a non-pecuniary association, running counselling services to fill the gap. Although there is a good case for those services to be outside the perceived authority of the school, there is also a case for government financial support to help such initiatives flourish. Such services do not come cheap but they are cost-effective because they often save greater cost later.
	Effective early intervention also requires joined-up thinking and action between professionals across education, health, social services, youth services, housing and law enforcement. One aspect of last week's Budget that most concerns me is the danger that children's services budgets will be attacked as local authorities struggle to pay their increased national insurance bills and at the same time achieve the Government's targets on bed blocking to avoid the financial penalties of failing. The extra money to address bed blocking is cancelled out by the extra bill for national insurance, so where is the money to address bed blocking to come from if not from children's services or other hard pressed budgets? Perhaps the Minister would like to explain.
	Schools and colleges are also facing another major resource problem. Last year the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 came onto the statute book. However, despite their good intentions, the Government have not provided adequate resources for our educational institutions to implement it. The result is that many schools and colleges face bills for capital and current provision that they simply cannot meet.
	The combination of those two problems could cause chaos in our schools. It is all very well setting the agenda and laying down targets, but the Government have a habit of failing to provide the resources to meet their aspirations and then blaming someone else when they are not met. Passing the buck to schools, local authorities, social services, and so on, has become a nasty habit that I wish that the Government would kick.
	Of course, resources are not just monetary. In a service such as education, it is human resources that matter most—that is, the teachers and support staff in our schools. In some areas, we have a real crisis of resource shortage. The Minister will undoubtedly be as tired of hearing me highlight the shortages of mathematics and science teachers as I am of highlighting them. I wish that that were not necessary. Sadly, we seem to be in a downward spiral that it will take a major effort to halt. Lack of specialist maths teachers means children uninspired to study maths and a consequent shortage of the mathematicians and maths teachers that the country needs.
	Creative initiatives backed by adequate resources are needed to inspire our young people to choose maths and to choose teaching. Perhaps I missed something, but I did not hear the Chancellor promise more money to help schools address those problems last week.
	Many schools are slipping through the net. In last week's Times Educational Supplement, there was an interesting case of a primary school in one of the lowest-funded counties—Staffordshire. It was not in an Excellence in Cities area or an education action zone; it was not a secondary that could apply to be a specialist school; not a small school; not a this, that or the other that attracts extra cash. And it found itself £18,000 in the red. If ever there was a case for levelling up, not levelling down, that is it.
	To summarise the common thread running through my remarks, it is dishonest of the Government constantly to set targets and promote policies but not provide the necessary resources to the agencies that must carry them out. To then beat those agencies with the stick of league tables and financial penalties for failing to meet the targets is the final insult.

Lord Moser: My Lords I, too, express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Dearing not only for introducing this important debate but for a series of a remarkable educational reports that bear his name.
	The broad background is clear enough, although it may help if the Minister clarifies the overall figures. We are spending about five per cent of our gross domestic product on education—that has gradually crept up during the past few years after considerable decline. That is still a little below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average, especially in our spending on higher education. Several major countries spend a good deal more. Perhaps the Minister could give us a summary statistical picture. In any case, there is certainly no cause for complacency.
	I wondered whether to speak about basic skills, with which I am involved, secondary schools or the teaching profession, but decided to devote my few minutes to universities. That is because, in a strange way, the universities have lost their place in the Government's thinking and priorities. Although I do not want for a moment to lessen the priority given to schools or basic skills, I shall speak about universities.
	I must declare an interest. I am Chancellor of Keele University and am closely involved with Oxford University and the London School of Economics.
	My mind goes back to the historic Robbins committee, on which the noble Lord, Lord Layard, and I both served 40 years ago. Among other things, we recommended a substantial expansion, which was implemented. But no one could conceivably have predicted that 40 years on a third of the age group would be going into higher education—still less that the Government would be aiming at 50 per cent.
	The route to today's mass higher education system has been dramatic. There are now far more universities, which have coped remarkably well with a vast increase in numbers. They have widened their offerings of academic courses and research and—this is not always appreciated—have greatly increased their links with industry and communities. Those are fine achievements, the reward for which, as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said, has been considerable cuts over the years. In spite of that, the main government emphasis is on further expansion to 50 per cent of the age group. I suggest most strongly that that should await a tidying up of funding—not just student finance, which we often discuss, but overall funding—so that universities can offer those students the decent quality teaching and research backing that is their prime function.
	I shall confine myself to two points that illustrate why government funding arrangements will force the university world into a period of decline. First, academic salaries are at a truly ludicrous level, well below all comparable occupations, not to mention the City. Twenty years ago, the average professor was paid the same as a Treasury under-secretary; today, the under-secretary—perhaps not deservedly—gets twice as much. No wonder that it is hard for universities to recruit and retain high quality academics. Moreover, it is an ageing profession. By 2010, nearly 50 per cent will be eligible for retirement. Add to that the expansion presumably required to cope with the targeted 50 per cent student intake, and one sees the scale of what can truly be described as a crisis into which years of underfunding have lead the universities. The quality of the academic staff—not their fault—is at issue.
	The latest research developments make things worse. The recent research exercise showed remarkable research advances throughout the universities, which was good news. The financial response from the Government was bad news. We were told that the outcome was that there was no more government money to finance those admirable research activities. The actual outcome is that 50 per cent of research funding will go to five leading universities. I am all in favour of a flow of money going to our leading universities. We need our Harvards, Yales and Princetons, and we have them. They need every bit of support. However, it is worrying that the other 50 per cent of funding is spread between around 90 universities. That means that even well graded research departments, including those graded 4, must—remarkably—cope with a considerable decline in research money. They have been graded highly but will get less money because of the limitation of research funding. That is another discouragement to the profession.
	Those two critical problems—salaries and research funding—bear on the quality of what universities, through no fault of their own, can offer the vast number of students. Both stem directly from the decline in funding over the decades. I refer your Lordships to recent reports from HEFCE and Universities UK, which show the serious implications of those trends. If noble Lords want lighter reading, they might turn to the recent brilliant lectures by Simon Jenkins at University College and the Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Those lectures show what has been happening to our universities.
	My main point is that the spending review, which we look forward to seeing in the summer, is crucial for all of the education sector, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, and not least for higher education. Every day that goes by, I care more about education, just as I care about health. The Prime Minister's priorities—education, education, education—are crucial, and I hope that the Government will allocate one of those "e"s to higher education.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has consistently put the case for more resources for education and training for more years than, probably, he would like to think. I congratulate him on doing so yet again.
	We all agree that a well educated, highly skilled and well trained workforce is essential to success in the modern economy. What stands in our way? Perhaps it is history. In the past, many in education regarded vocational and technical subjects as second-class. Some academics still hold that attitude, but, thankfully, it is being overcome. Since May 1997, the Government have started to tackle the discrimination against vocational training. As the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, told us, there will be GCSEs in subjects such as management and engineering. However, we are still at a disadvantage because we start from a lower base than our competitors.
	Where is the barrier to the call from the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for more education and skills in the economy? Could it be within the business community itself? However successfully the Government and the education sector provide the policies and resources for an educated and skilled workforce, their action alone cannot bring about the changes necessary to make a real impact on the problem of low and absent skills.
	There must be a partnership with business, and business must play its part. Fortunately, many companies and businesses do so. Some of our companies, such as Ford, BAE Systems and the company with which the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, is associated do a wonderful, remarkable job. However, many do not consider training to be a top priority. Their view is that the manager's duty is, above all, to pursue increased share value by any means possible.
	There are all kinds of ways of improving share value that are faster and less risky than investing in training and skills. A company can move into the currently fashionable sector of business, engage seriously in financial engineering or come to an informal arrangement with competitors. The Office of Fair Trading announced this week that it uncovered one cartel every month. We now know that, if someone does business with the right bank or brokerage house, their analysts will talk up the share price. Companies can outsource their work and avoid the cost of training altogether. As the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, reminded us, they can even move their business to a country where costs of labour and standards of employment are lower.
	Skills training must have a bigger impact on share value than some of those activities. For that to be achieved, there must be a real commitment to productivity and a longer timescale. Fortunately, we have a growing number of companies whose leadership is guided by such thinking. Certainly, they are focused on results, but they are also concerned about clients, about adding value, about making a difference and continuously improving what they do. Such companies are concerned about improving relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, investors and the community.
	Such leadership provides a sense of purpose; the employees know what the company is trying to achieve and what role they can play. It removes the insecurity created by the feeling that, as a result of improved productivity and efficiency achieved through training and skills, employees will cut their own throats because the company will be downsized. That kind of leadership encourages people to become more literate and more numerate and to acquire the IT skills that enable them to work more effectively and earn more. It offers every encouragement and facility for employees to move up from one level to the next because year-on-year skill requirements are rising. It recognises that, today, technical experts are increasingly expected to incorporate management into their daily work and encourages them to acquire the relevant skills.
	Those are the partners that my noble friend the Minister should seek out. That is the means whereby our investment in education will be converted into the improved industrial performance we all seek. My point is simple: if our economy is to benefit from the work of the education sector and the Government's efforts to raise the performance of our workforce through education and training, those efforts must be matched by a leadership culture in business and industry that looks beyond the narrow confines of the financial markets.

The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this timely debate. I want to begin by welcoming the Chancellor's promise in his Budget speech to,
	"increase significantly the share of national income devoted to education over the course of this Parliament".—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/02; col. 588.]
	The additional £270 million package announced last week was good news, though I imagine that some will say, "About time too!". In particular, I want to welcome the £87 million targeted at addressing issues of behaviour in the classroom. However, I hope that the increased highlighting of special needs in schools is matched by resourcing of both staff and accommodation.
	On a visit to the Isle of Wight yesterday, I had the opportunity to see the excellent work done at the Bishop Lovett school at Ryde where 30 per cent of the pupils have special needs. Such schools are working extremely hard and they need more resourcing. I think of other schools such as St Luke's in the centre of Portsmouth.
	I would also urge that further money be released to go beyond the 33 hot-spot areas which have been identified. While it is heart-warming to hear of the Chancellor's generosity towards the world of education, I want to make a couple of points which I would not want the House to lose sight of in the longer term.
	First, the Department for Education and Skills announced on 19th March a consultation process to make the National Professional Qualification for Headship a mandatory requirement for first-time head teachers. That points up the fact that schools are reliant to a great extent on the quality of the leadership team, both in terms of direction and strategy on the one hand and vision and affirmation on the other. But while no one would doubt that raising the overall standards of schools is affected in a significant way by the quality of leadership, the standards in the classroom lie very much with thousands of teachers who day by day share in the lives of our children, young people and increasingly those in adult education.
	I believe that we under-estimate the value of our teachers and that is reflected in their resourcing. None of us would argue with providing teachers with better classrooms, more facilities and enhanced working conditions. But we still have not yet moved to a position where ordinary classroom teachers are remunerated in proportion not only to their professional skills but also to the impact they have on the lives of children and young people. Here I recall with great warmth a lecture given by the noble Lord, Lord Moser, in Portsmouth University some years ago where I happen to be a governor.
	I am happy to talk about the notion of vocation and I believe that to be critical in sustaining people through the sometimes thankless periods of their lives. However, I fear that in the case of teachers the notion of vocation has often been used as a cloak, to put it bluntly, for avoiding paying them properly for the key role that they play in our society. Who has the most fundamental impact on a child's life outside the family? Members of the medical profession will do so at particular stages and, unfortunately, other public servants in the emergency services will also be called upon from time to time. But none comes anywhere near to the shaping and formation which takes place in school above and beyond the academic achievements which we rightly celebrate.
	The second point I want to make concerns building effective partnerships. The Secretary of State, Estelle Morris, speaks of a "shared vision". I concur with the view expressed in the strategy document that,
	"successful delivery will depend on strong and effective relationships with many partners".
	The words "partner" or "partnership"—we all have computers which can call up the number of times words are used if our memories are of no help in that regard—are mentioned 14 times in the document. Fortunately, I do not use those words as often in my sermons, but there we are! It is a deeply spiritual concept, joking apart.
	I believe it to be a key practice in education. However, the recently announced Budget package makes little mention of this. I urge the Government to consider thoroughly how such partnerships can best be funded. In the SRB world, partnerships between business and education and Government are often difficult to sustain beyond the given period after which the whole thing has to be argued for again. Good as SRB developments are, I hope that lessons will be learnt from that.
	Where voluntary organisations are working in partnership with local education authorities, it would seem that those with a stake in education are being hit by a kind of "doubly whammy". Not only do they pay for education through taxes, they are also often making voluntary contributions to other organisations.
	I want to conclude by saying that the notion of "life-long learning" has not only been a significant development within educational philosophy over the past 20 years, but also in practical terms a fundamental feature of the way in which the worlds of education and employment have become explicitly connected. This is undoubtedly part of the back-drop to the creation, following last year's general election, of the Department for Education and Skills. It has led to a broader perspective—one which I wholly support—of seeing education as a continuous process in which there are any number of particular stages, rather than the somewhat curtailed versions experienced by another generation.
	Fundamentally, education has to be available and attainable for children, young people, as well as adults—that is, if we are to take seriously the constantly changing needs in the workplace and home.

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for many things, including his many vigorous and rigorous contributions to the furtherance of education of which today's speech was another example.
	I was particularly taken with the statistics of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who pointed out that in the 1950s and since we seem to have had as a national policy disinvestment in education rather than increasing investment. Indeed, I was taken back to my boyhood in the 1950s, to the "Goon Show" and the remarkable song which began, "I'm walking backwards for Christmas". As a merry youth, I did not realise that that was a statement of government education and investment policy. The difficulty is that Christmas has not come.
	Perhaps I may declare an interest. I am employed by the University of Edinburgh. Inevitably, therefore, my remarks will be from the academic coal face. Although I would wish to speak on many aspects of education, I shall restrict myself to higher education.
	A point I want to make immediately is that a fixed epithet is often attached to the word "vice-chancellor"; it is the word "whinging". Perhaps I may try to deconstruct that notion immediately by first congratulating the Government, the Office of Science and Technology, the DTI, and through it the Treasury and the Wellcome Trust on the major investment in research infrastructure which has taken place over the past two or three years. The investment of £1 billion is significant and is recognition of the quality of research in our universities. It is capped—I make the point explicitly—by the institutions with the help of their friends in industry and business and other funding sources. They are alive to funding sources outside the state system of at least a further £250 million. That was the condition of receiving funds from the Budget. I congratulate the Government and the OST on that.
	But—and there is bound to be a but—that investment was the recognition of the reality of which we have been speaking today. It is the reality of years of under-investment. I simply plead with the OST and through it the Treasury that in the coming spending review they find ways of entrenching at least that level of investment in the system over the years to come. A one-off bonanza is marvellous—if you hit the target and have good bids you do well, as did my own institution—but it is not a recipe for long-term growth and ensuring steady research, training and skills at the highest level in ways that are necessary for our economic future.
	We have been under-investing in our universities. But, somehow, despite views to the contrary, the universities have continued to deliver more and more for much less. It is thought that universities cannot manage themselves. There has been reference to that. We do not manage ourselves; in most of the universities that I know and certainly in those in which I have worked, there are excellent governing bodies aided by superb help from captains of industry, from those in business and the local community. They have all helped us to manage what I consider has been a spectacular success.
	But that success has been bought at two prices—first, a very significant cost to the infrastructure. Report after report has indicated the difficulties. I have referred to research infrastructure; I should stress that teaching infrastructure is as much in need of support and investment. If we are to broaden the base of students coming into university, we must have the facilities that allow us to do that. We want to produce graduates, not people who drop out or fail at the end of the first or second year.
	The second cost, to which reference has already been made, is that borne by our staff. I shall not repeat the points made by my noble friend Lord Moser, but university staff salaries have significantly fallen behind all relevant comparators. One might ask whether that matters. We still have university teachers, so perhaps the market is settling itself at a lower level.
	I shall give the House three reasons why it does matter. The first is international comparisons. If one calculates the adjustment to the relevant OECD figures for comparative academic salaries, we fall somewhat below Spain and just above Greece. Spain and Greece are marvellous nations, but they are not the natural benchmarks if we wish to succeed in developing a highly geared, technology-based economy with the kind of skills developed at the highest levels that the universities can produce. Our benchmarks have to be countries like Canada, the US, Germany and so forth. Those are not the benchmarks against which we are performing as a nation. Again, I hear some ask whether that matters. It matters because the employment world for academics is an international one; the best academics can work anywhere in the world. Unless we can recruit and retain the best people over here, again our contribution to the education and skills necessary for our economic and cultural development will fail.
	The second reason is the comparison with other professions, a further point made by my noble friend Lord Moser. I shall therefore move on to the third reason and cite only one example to illustrate the fact that there are shortages in many key areas of teaching. A recent survey of computing science departments in British universities indicated that more than 90 departments are currently carrying vacancies, while almost 13 per cent of those departments have vacancies running at over 20 per cent. That has happened because we cannot afford to recruit and retain staff in a very competitive area of our economy.
	Until last week, those points would have formed the substance of my speech, but in conclusion I should like to make one further point. This matter was discussed earlier at Question Time: national insurance contributions. Perhaps I may cite my own institution to illustrate what the new proposals will mean. The employer's contributions for my institution will amount initially to £1 million a year, so I shall have to tell my staff that, yes, they will have to pay 1 per cent more in tax. That is a matter between them and the ballot box, although personally I do not mind because I would rather be honest and pay the extra money in the form of tax. But not only will my staff pay 1 per cent more in tax; there will be roughly 40 fewer junior lecturers in the institution to help my staff next year. They should not count on there being many weekends free of marking even more essays and looking through even more lab reports.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. On the last occasion he spoke in this House, he had just rushed in from Barnsley, but was nevertheless as impressive as ever in his eloquence, wit and knowledge. He is no less so today and I thank him for initiating this important debate.
	The noble Lord spoke of investment in people, which I agree is vital. He spoke also of the need to cultivate a diversity of skills; again I agree that that is vital. Resources of any kind for any service need to be targeted, appropriate, cost-effective and monitored in order to test their effectiveness. Today I want to discuss two initiatives in education which comply with those criteria. They invest in people and develop skills. I refer to the Sure Start programme and the National Healthy Schools Standard.
	As a governor of an inner city London primary school, I am well aware of the importance to education of that vital resource, teachers—and how to recruit and retain them in the inner cities. I know that it also concerns my noble friend on the Front Bench. No doubt she will wish to comment on this issue when she comes to respond to the debate.
	I shall focus on Sure Start and the National Healthy Schools Standard because I think that both initiatives illustrate what resources for education and skills should be about; namely, raising pupil achievement, promoting social inclusion and addressing health inequalities. Both programmes have also used processes of implementation which I believe the systems in education and health could learn from. Both are being evaluated; both include partnerships—a point mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth—and both are moving forwards.
	In addressing the basics of how young people are encouraged to achieve, not only academically but also socially, we have to address how their needs are met and how their confidence can be built up in the early years—a point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—and then by the ethos of a school.
	The Sure Start programme was initiated by the Government in October 1999 with an initial budget of £452 million to cover three years. Its aims are to work with parents-to-be, parents and children to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children, in particular those who are disadvantaged, so that they are stimulated at home to perform better when they get to school. Its principles involve using culturally sensitive programmes to encourage families to participate. By now, some 259 such programmes are in operation. The next 177 programmes have been announced and should be in place by next summer.
	The Sure Start programme works across government departments and local networks, including parents, local education authorities, social services departments, local NHS structures, voluntary and community organisations. It provides an excellent example of partnership building.
	A large-scale, long-term national evaluation of the Sure Start programme began in January 2001. I have selected only a few indices here, but early findings indicate that local links to other services are good, that parental involvement is high—including management of the local programmes—and that support to parents and families is marked, including links with local education institutions to encourage parents to take up training or education. Programmes support new mothers by providing ante-natal and post-natal care, including smoking cessation programmes and breastfeeding advice.
	The reason I consider this programme to be a vital resource is because it begins in the early years, offering support to and involving parents and communities, thus empowering people to make the programme sustainable. It is at this stage that young people learn fundamentally how to operate in society and how to develop and use opportunities. We all know of the difficulties faced in adolescence. However, by then it is too late to expect resources of whatever kind to compensate for a lack of security and motivation.
	I shall turn briefly to the National Healthy Schools Standard, an award for schools established in 1998, funded jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills. The budget for 2002-03 is £7.5 million. The programme promotes physical and emotional health by equipping children and young people with the attitudes and skills to make informed decisions about health, which can then be transferred to other areas of life. Investing in health, of course, assists in raising levels of pupil achievement.
	The National Healthy Schools Standard encourages schools to provide a physical and social environment which is conducive to learning. Every LEA is now working in partnership with health to develop local healthy schools programmes. Almost 14,000 schools out of a possible 25,000 are accessing quality assured training services provided by those programmes. A review undertaken in 2000 by Ofsted stated that the National Healthy Schools Standard award has helped to improve working between LEAs and health service structures, and has helped to develop school policies such as drug education and citizenship. Programmes have been instrumental in making improvements at both primary and secondary levels in the behaviour of pupils, standards of work in the classroom and the quality of personal and social education programmes.
	When we are examining the resources needed to develop education and skills, we do not always need expensive technology, although IT is a great bonus. I return to my original premise, that raising achievement, promoting social inclusion and addressing health inequalities are fundamental to education and skills. The two programmes that I have mentioned cost less than they might through good-will and joint working. Their depth, consistency and impact are worth noting. They cost less than picking up the pieces or trying to compensate by putting extra resources into dysfunctional children or families at a later stage.
	Children deserve resources which are carefully designed and implemented. The programmes that I have discussed provide examples of what engages and inspires people to be involved in decisions about their lives. Again as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said, investment in people is crucial. Does the Minister agree that resources such as the two I have mentioned are invaluable?

Lord Chan: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on securing the debate. I thank him for asking me to speak on a subject that is the cornerstone for the success of the Government's policies, particularly in health and social care. I must apologise to noble Lords. I am unable to stay to hear the Minister's reply as I have to be in Liverpool to chair a meeting this evening.
	I want to focus on the future needs of the National Health Service for skilled professional people with compassion and sensitivity to deliver a service of the highest quality that everyone expects.
	The Secretary of State for Health said in his address last Thursday on Delivering the NHS Plan that by 2008 he would expect a,
	"net increase of at least 15,000 more GPs and consultants, 30,000 more therapists and scientists, and 35,000 more nurses, midwives and health visitors".
	The achievement of these large increases in highly skilled professional people in so short a time will require at least three key conditions: first, increased sustained recruitment of students and graduates; secondly, more funds for training institutions and support to enable students to afford the fees and costs of training; and, thirdly, new innovative training courses that prepare new graduates to provide the health and social care services that people need.
	In order to motivate and attract the kind of people needed by the NHS, more attention should be given to inviting prospective candidates to visit primary healthcare centres, hospitals and laboratories that support the health service. There should be opportunities for them to go on structured visits, to shadow health professionals and to accompany them on visits to homes. This exposure to real patients and the actual workplace would help to select future NHS staff with the appropriate attitudes to patient care.
	Education and training courses in medicine, nursing and health-related sciences cost more than other academic courses because they involve contact with patients and take longer. The current estimate is that a university student will accumulate about £10,000 in debts from student loans over three years. For a medical student the debt will be £16,000 after five years. Clearly the Government need to consider supporting students, particularly those from families with modest incomes, in order to enable them to pursue training in healthcare professions. Failure to do this will perpetuate medicine, for example, as the preserve of the children of professional families.
	Although the undergraduate medical and nursing curricula have undergone changes in the past three decades, the pace of change has not kept up with the reality of a health service increasingly used by people, inadequately funded and inadequately staffed. The expectations of the public and patients have risen rapidly with advances in information technology. Demand for acute medical and health services has also risen steeply because of drug and alcohol abuse, particularly among young people. About one-third of all cases in our accident and emergency departments in hospitals result from alcohol abuse.
	What then will constitute an appropriate curriculum for our medical and health professionals of the 21st century? It will have to be an integrated curriculum for doctors, dentists, nurses and other health professionals. Causes of premature death and disability must be addressed—in particular, lifestyle-induced diseases of the heart, lungs and blood vessels, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity and diabetes, to mention a few. Health inequalities associated with poverty, deprivation and ethnicity should be included in the curriculum. Public health, with its emphasis on prevention of disease and the maintenance of health, will need as much prominence as treatment of diseases.
	I therefore look forward to the outcome of the development in the next two years of the new "common learning" programmes for undergraduate health professionals announced by the Health Minister, John Hutton, on 14th February this year.
	The Government need to focus their attention and funding on all these issues in regard to the training of health professionals if the NHS Plan for a better health service is to be achieved in the next five years.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, the noble Lord has made a very important contribution to the debate. As other speakers have pointed out, large sums of money will be needed if the education service is to do its job.
	I should like to comment on an aspect of what the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said in regard to one area where the nation need not wait until the next spending review. Some of your Lordships—the professional educators and councillors among you—may think I am over-simplifying, but I am entirely unrepentant about that.
	This week the secondary school league tables were published in Scotland. They contain only pass numbers and percentages at standard and higher grade levels, but it is interesting to make comparisons, on that level alone, between schools and locations with which one is familiar— for example, between two schools in country towns a few miles apart with similar catchment areas. Those schools show roughly the same percentage of passes at Highers level—the equivalent of A-levels—but at standard grade one school achieved very much more than the other.
	Looking elsewhere on the list, at comparative city schools as well as those in local towns, the same evidence appears. The unevenness that is unexplained by catchment area is in the standard grade achievement; the unevenness is in what schools have done for their least able pupils; the unevenness is in the number of young people leaving school with little or nothing to show for the 18,000 hours they have spent in classrooms.
	Your Lordships will accept that that unevenness is not peculiar to my part of the country or to Scotland. Surely a top priority at this time must be the young people whom school is failing, the ones who form the gap in the league tables because they achieve so little. We must surely concentrate on them above all, not only for their own sakes—although that is the most important reason of all—but because to improve their lot will be the key to so many other of our national problems—the youth crime on our streets, the drugs and drink and bad diet, teenage pregnancies and single motherhood, employers' recruitment problems, the universities' difficulty in widening access, the apparently unchanging large number of adults lacking basic reading and calculating skills.
	Of course, the problems are not new, but the need to tackle them is increasingly urgent. Surely, this Government, with their stated commitment and enthusiasm for social justice and their big House of Commons' majority, should have the strength to stand up to the excuses which continue to be made within the system and insist.
	Is the difficulty due to funding? The difference between the schools I have mentioned is not financial—they have similar funding regimes—nor is it the formal curriculum, which is broadly shared. The difference is what interests and motivates the young people most; what the schools are like to be in; how they feel and how they feel to the parents. It is also in the informal curriculum such as sports, clubs, societies, expeditions, drama, and the relationship with staff which those informal activities offer. It is in the hidden curriculum, the atmosphere, the attitude to individuals within the school, to visitors, the attitude to uniform and the whole ethos of the school.
	Some schools can do it. Some are motivating those most difficult to motivate. Others in similar circumstances are far less successful. Should not the Government now start a big campaign, not by producing yet more targets to be met and bureaucracy in measuring those targets, but asking schools, each in their own way, to pool experience and challenging them to do better for the less advantaged? We all know that the need is there and we all need to meet it. Should schools themselves not make a huge effort to do better in this way when they are not succeeding?
	I believe that it is a matter of will; of political will; of will in education and among our people. I believe that the Government could do a lot to give a lead on this.

Lord Quirk: My Lords, in gladly joining the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, I start with a word on the problem of attracting, recruiting and retaining good teachers, surely the most important and vital resource in education. In addition to inspiring our own teenage young with the prospects of a rewarding career, there are other possibilities. One is to look abroad, as we have done with teachers and nurses. As it happens, I am against overseas recruitment if it means filching teachers from countries like South Africa where the need is even greater than ours. But nearer to home there are countries such as Germany and Poland producing a buoyant supply of graduates well able—thanks to a good education system—to teach maths and other shortage subjects in English. We should be looking at that rather more carefully than I suspect we are.
	I also wonder about the possibility of second-career attractions being offered to men and women in their 40s. Are Ministers studying the model presented by the Alternative Certification route in the United States? It has a 20-year track record and according to the Economist last month, it is now the means whereby about one-third of all teachers in the United States enter the profession. It is a quick way of tapping into the academic knowledge and also the life skills and experience of people who have a real contribution to make in the classroom. Moreover, it seems to be a recruitment stream especially favoured by men and ethnic minorities. They are just the people, one may say, that we need in our inner city schools. Do not let us forget that we have vacancies for 2,000 in London alone, and needs too in the prison education service to which I now turn.
	Successive governments have acknowledged the crucial role of education if those emerging from young offender institutions and from adult prisons alike are to have any chance of getting regular employment and going straight. Yet we all know how little has actually been achieved to improve matters over the years. I drew attention just a year ago to the fact that in HMP Birmingham only 60 out of 1,000 inmates were on proper education or vocational courses. Last month I noted that in HMP Wandsworth only 90 of 1,400 inmates could be in classes at any one time and that the education facilities were in use for only 20 hours a week.
	I happily acknowledge that there has been notable progress over the past year with responsibility for education and training being transferred with ring-fenced budgets to the Department for Education. I welcome, too, the establishment within the DfES of a prisoners' learning and skills unit, just as I welcome innovative schemes like "Learndirect" now being piloted in several prisons. I have high praise for the splendid volunteer work done by bodies such as the Prisoners Education Trust, which is doing remarkable work on an annual budget of less than £200,000 a year.
	But how much remains to be done. Provision is still inexplicably uneven across the Prison Service and woefully inadequate overall. Even with the planned increase to £62 million in the financial year 2002-3, this works out at only about £600 per head for education per annum as against the total cost of incarceration, which is well over £25,000 per head per annum.
	We get some idea of the continuing problem from the report on the young offender institution, Deerbolt, by Ms Anne Owers, published last month. Deerbolt, she says, is "one of the better" young offender institutions, yet it,
	"suffers from insufficient investment in regimes and activities",
	with,
	"education places for only 30% of the prison population at a time",
	the rest being locked up in their cells for "up to 23 hours" at a stretch: and that is one of the better young offender institutions.
	Nor is that all. There is the little matter of priorities. The otherwise praiseworthy drive to raise basic skills seriously misses the point. Ms Owers reports that the education targets do not meet the needs of most young people there. Sixty per cent of them are functionally illiterate; that is to say, below Level 1 in basic skills. But the Prison Service targets focus on Level 2. Praiseworthily, Deerbolt is exceeding those targets, but at the expense, she says, of cutting by one-third the lower level courses that nearly two-thirds of the population of Deerbolt needs. That was Ms Owers only last month. But her message is exactly what her predecessor, Sir David Ramsbotham, told me in a letter two years ago.
	There is one final point. The 60 per cent who are below Level 1 deprived themselves of education through exclusion or bunking off as 10-year olds. But now many see the light and are keen to make up for their deficit in education and skills. Those who are not might well respond to the kind of deal suggested by several of us, most recently by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, himself, of remission time being negotiated in return for courses passed. That would be a double gain for us because, first, it would be a reduction in the enormous costs of our Prison Service and, secondly, an increase in the number of those released who would have some chance of entering an honest career thereafter.

Baroness Warnock: My Lords, this is an extremely timely debate. I join in the expressions of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Dearing not only for initiating the debate but also for introducing it with such vision and for putting our present predicament into its historical context.
	I have nothing to say that has not been said or will not be said more eloquently by others. But for those of us who have spent our entire lives in education it is our absolute duty to state the facts even if that means restating the obvious.
	The fact is that it will be impossible for the Government to meet their manifesto undertaking—the target of 50 per cent of school leavers having some experience of higher education—without investing an enormous amount of money in education, not at some future date but now, immediately, this summer. I agree strongly with my noble friend Lord Moser that that target cannot be met without money first being invested in schools. The target should be removed until the performance of secondary schools has improved greatly, as I believe has the performance of primary schools as a result of government initiatives. I disagree with the somewhat gloomy remarks on primary schools of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. The Government have made a clear commitment to primary education and there is a great deal of evidence that it is beginning to work. But the same cannot be said for the secondary schools.
	Again I make an obvious point. I refer to the difficulty of obtaining and retaining good teachers. No one can pretend that it is not a matter of money. Teachers have themselves to be educated. They have to be trained. But, above all, they must be paid a proper salary which does not place them at the bottom of the professional pile but reflects their worth.
	That has further consequences. As we all know, the cost of housing now makes it impossible for teachers in a large number of areas throughout the country to live anywhere near their place of work. Therefore, teachers are bound to leave London, Birmingham and other areas where they are urgently needed because they simply cannot afford to live there.
	The other obvious fact is that the universities will be unable to provide higher education for new students without millions of pounds being provided to them through the funding council. If higher education is not only to retain some elements of its old-fashioned use of academic education but also to expand to cover all the kinds of education about which we have heard today—and it must do so; otherwise there is no point in these vast numbers of people having the experience of higher education—then teachers of higher education must be found. They will not be found if they are not given, first, a proper salary; and, secondly, an opportunity for research. In many cases, people go into higher education to combine teaching with research. I maintain that the best university teachers combine teaching with research. We cannot find those people—and certainly not among young people. There is still a body of university teachers, as I well know, but they are all knocking on a bit. They are not likely to find replacements for themselves without a serious rise in the standard of living for university teachers.
	I have to declare an interest. The university that I know best is Oxford. It is quite astonishing to reflect on the comparative wealth that we enjoyed when I was in my 20s, 30s and 40s: the houses we lived in; the schools to which we could expect to send our children; and the status now of university teachers. I take one example. The Dragon School is an independent preparatory school which all my five children attended. University members of Oxford's community are barely represented among the parents of those at Dragon School. They cannot afford that kind of education. Neither do they live in the kind of houses that we were able to live in. The real drop in the standard of living of university teachers is extraordinary.
	I conclude with an important point. One of the most remarkable aspects about teaching in Oxford was that we attracted undergraduates from overseas. Many of them having already gained a degree from their home country took another undergraduate degree in Oxford. I cannot help thinking of the wonderful Rhodes Scholars we taught at Oxford. Those people are beginning no longer to want to come to this country. Why should they want to do so? Last week Sir Howard Newby said that the top priority of the funding distribution was accessibility of universities to people from deprived backgrounds and the outreach of universities into the community. If you are an undergraduate from Harvard or Princeton, or from wherever it is in Germany, why would you want to come to a university which, because of those priorities, is degenerating, being allowed to crumble, not having the academic aspirations that it used to have? I believe that the loss of overseas undergraduates will be very serious not only to the universities but also the country as a whole. The status of this country has always depended, and I hope in future will be able to depend, on the quality of its universities. I do not talk just about the ancient universities but the many other universities—they are no more than 40 years old—which are and have been at the peak of academic success. We must not let that go through a failure to take the issue seriously.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, perhaps I may clarify something she said. It may be relevant to the debate. Is it not appropriate to do so?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, it is a timed debate. There is a list of speakers.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating the debate. Perhaps I may mention in particular how pleased I am that he spoke about the challenges from France and Germany. That is pertinent to my contribution.
	I want to give a flavour of the 15th report from Sub-Committee F of the Select Committee on the European Union of which I am a member. The report is called Working in Europe: Access for all. Sub-Committee F covers social affairs, education and home affairs and is ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. The report's findings have implications for government resources. One of the European Community's key objectives is the abolition of obstacles to freedom of movement of workers between member states. Free movement within the Union is a right of EU citizens, added by the Maastricht Treaty and reiterated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
	While some steps have been taken to secure the free movement of workers, there is no doubt that barriers remain which inhibit the mobility of movement; and it is upon those that Sub-Committee F commented. The Commission has said clearly in the past that it aims to ensure that European labour markets are efficient, open and accessible to all and to deliver full employment in a dynamic, competitive, knowledge-based economy. It was against that background, therefore, that Sub-Committee F carried out its deliberations.
	During the course of our studies, we looked at the level of easy access to employment—what is described as geographical mobility—in the EU, examining this against other elements of a flexible labour market. We examined the perceived barriers to geographical mobility and considered movement between jobs—occupational mobility—in depth. We considered the need to improve people's level of basic skills, the provision of life-long learning and the recognition of both informal and non-formal learning. We considered also the availability of information open to those who wish to be mobile.
	As we hope that the report will be discussed at length in this Chamber at a future date, I shall concentrate my remarks on only two of the findings and recommendations of this wide-ranging report. The first crucial finding was that 20 per cent—one in five—of UK workers lack the basic education to compete in the rapidly changing European labour market. That is a devastating figure. It is therefore vital that the Government place emphasis on life-long learning if such workers are to survive in the modern labour market. There must be free access not only to basic skills but to other forms of help for all our people, irrespective of age.
	If the UK workforce is to compete with others in Europe, the Government's priorities must be: to ensure that all workers have basic skills, and that all are able to improve the skills that they have gained; to ensure further progress on national recognition of qualifications between states; and to ensure a concentration on language skills. In that context, the lack of language skills caused the sub-committee a great deal of concern, which resulted in a call by the committee for a development of the national curriculum so that the first foreign language can be taught in our schools to all pupils from the age of eight at the latest.
	I now turn to the second finding to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention. It is the lack of any systematic data on individual perceptions and experiences of geographical mobility. We do not know to what extent the geographical mobility of workforces in the EU is artificially restricted by barriers. There are no data on which we can rely to find this out. Witness after witness reporting to the sub-committee—from a wide range of national and international organisations—admitted that that was the case.
	We know that for some the barrier is the lack of education and skills; for others, it may be a question of housing, or of their children's schooling; or it may be the difficulty that partners experience in getting a job in a new country. We know that all these are factors; but we do not know which are the most important. Unless we can gain more information in this crucial area, we cannot hope to overcome these barriers.
	I conclude, therefore, by asking my noble friend questions on two points pertinent to our findings. First, will she share with the House the Government's latest thinking on the teaching of foreign languages in schools and in particular at what age the Government encourage such teaching to start? Secondly, bearing in mind that policy continues to be drafted and negotiated despite the absence of significant statistical information in this area, do the Government have plans to rectify that for the future?

Lord Browne of Madingley: My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this debate. This is an important subject.
	I shall concentrate on universities. My direct knowledge is of Cambridge and of Stanford in the United States, but I speak as the chief executive of a company which employs more than 50,000 graduates world-wide.
	From that perspective, no one can doubt the value of a university education for individuals in developing not just professional skills but also the ability to learn, to question and to develop ideas in co-operation with others. Equally, no one can doubt the economic value of universities. America's strength in the world now owes an enormous amount to sustained investment in higher education. As the work of Richard Levin at Yale and others has shown, the best universities have created new industries and have driven improvements in human capital and productivity. The investment that we make now in our universities and the way in which that investment is directed will shape the fortunes of this country for decades to come.
	Globalisation has brought competition—for the best brains and for the research funding which follows quality. British universities have many strengths, but we are slipping behind in ways which, if not corrected, will damage our long-term economic prospects.
	The level of funding for universities here is well below that of the best universities in the world, perhaps by a factor of four. Additional funding is needed, but that is not sufficient. Existing and new money should be invested in accordance with four simple principles.
	First, we must invest in focus and merit. We have to devote a greater proportion of any available funding to world-leading research, because in the end the most powerful research is work which extends human knowledge. So we need a wider scale of assessment, and one which recognises that the most creative research often comes from co-operation across disciplinary boundaries. The current assessment system does not differentiate sufficiently between the adequate and the best, particularly when almost half of all research is rated as five or five star.
	With merit will come differentiation. That is the second principle. Institutions need to be able to define their own missions. Research is not the only function of universities. The quality of teaching must also be enhanced if the expansion of access is to be worth while. As education becomes a global activity, the proven ability to teach will be an immense source of competitive advantage for British institutions. In the end, that ability can be judged only by the users, and I strongly support the introduction of open and published assessments by students.
	The third principle is proper funding. If we are asking universities to undertake world-leading research, or to teach an ever growing number of students, each task should be properly funded. If, as many argue, funding should follow the student, and the research teams, their budgets should cover the costs of maintaining the university as an institution. The backlog of capital spending should also be met. Funding should recognise the need to reward the best academics at world-class levels—openly—as a signal to others to pursue academic careers.
	The fourth principle is governance—which underpins everything else. If universities themselves are asking for the right to increase fees and if they are accepting the responsibility that goes with that—to ensure that access is available on the basis of merit rather than the ability to pay—governance is essential. Opaque and antique systems will not produce the necessary trust.
	We have to apply to universities the basic principles of governance—external oversight; clarity of roles and responsibilities; accountability against defined objectives; and professional management. The four principles of focus, differentiation, proper funding and good governance are all important and inextricably linked. If they can be achieved, we can change the competitive order.
	The ranking of universities across the world is not immutable. The ranking of the top universities in the United States changes all the time. In this country over the past 20 years we have seen the rise of highly successful universities such as Warwick, which did not exist about 40 years ago. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, I believe that in the next 20 years we shall see the development of the great universities of China and other countries to a global level. The international movement of academics and students will become the norm.
	We can compete and we can lead in research on focused areas of expertise and in teaching. However, to compete we must change. We have to increase funding, but we must also use that funding with greater care. These decisions will shape where we stand in that competitive race and they will shape our future as a nation.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I, too, join in heaping paeans of praise on the head of my noble friend Lord Dearing for raising this subject at this time. One thing is crystal clear from the debate. Despite the Budget's tax increases, there is unlikely to be enough public money to meet all the Government's—and your Lordships'—ambitious plans for education. However, resources can imply more than financial funding. I shall explore the potential of other resources that could also be mobilised.
	I congratulate the Government on the priority given to education and, despite criticisms, on some achievements. They have rightly put more emphasis on and provided more money for nursery education and the recruitment and training of teachers, although still not enough. Nor is sufficient given for salaries.
	The Government have also emphasised the need to attract more young people into higher and further education. I agree with everything that has been said about the need on the further education side, particularly for those from deprived backgrounds. However, concern is growing as to whether the resources deployed are delivering value for money. The Government should note two recurring criticisms: of the bureaucratic workload being imposed on those at the grass roots by the constant changes, and of the Government's reluctance to delegate sufficiently to where the action takes place.
	Like others, I feel a particular concern about universities. I declare an interest as vice-chairman of the Open University council and a governor of the LSE. We still await the results of the Government's inquiry into student financing, but ahead of that we know that students, especially those from deprived backgrounds, are increasingly concerned about their mounting debts. Another major concern that we have heard a lot about today is that university salaries are down comparatively, as the noble Lord, Lord Moser, stressed. They are far higher in other countries, particularly the United States. Scarce UK teaching and research talent is inevitably being attracted overseas.
	To their considerable credit, many UK universities have responded by becoming increasingly entrepreneurial. Partnerships with other universities and with businesses are helping to provide extra resources in efforts to keep standards high. However, universities still need greater freedom to innovate. I agree entirely with the points stressed by my noble friend Lord Browne on that issue.
	Has not the time come for a different approach to the funding of higher education? Should we consider something more akin to what happens in the US, perhaps involving a voucher system? Such a system has the advantage of being firmly student-centred and gives each qualified individual a basic funded voucher providing an entitlement at some stage in life to a university education. Universities would compete for students, with fewer restrictions on the numbers they could take in. They might also be allowed greater freedom to charge more for some degree courses than for others. Such a system would mean less hands-on involvement by government and the HEFCE in the affairs of universities. It would also allow universities greater freedom to raise and spend extra resources.
	The Government should retain the power to set the parameters for what they believe is important. For example, they could raise the value of a voucher for a shortage subject or double its value for students from a deprived background.
	Several recent debates in your Lordships' House have focused on deprived communities and the importance of spending more money on the children most at risk in the early stages of their lives in school and pre-school. The aim is that, among other benefits to society, that focus might head off at least some of the escalating cost of the grizzly alternative if they reach prison. That raises the question of identifying children at risk early enough to begin helping them and supporting their families. My experience is that teachers, social workers and the police at grass roots know exactly where early intervention is needed. I am glad to commend the Government's plans to spend more money in that area, but is the joined-up thinking mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, yet in place in anything like the relevant number of local authorities?
	As well as that, we need far greater involvement by the whole community in tackling the problem, whether by personal voluntary efforts or local businesses and employers providing support financially and through employee secondment. I heard recently of the excellent partnership initiative between London First and the Metropolitan Police.
	Alas, there are growing concerns that as a society we are becoming less concerned individually to help our fellow citizens. Thankfully, there are exceptions. To their great credit, many schools and universities are playing a practical role in helping to raise the aspirations and self-esteem of the young in deprived areas. Surely it is far better to motivate talented deprived young people from an early age and, by such mentoring, enable them to qualify for university in the normal way rather than asking universities to accept them with lower qualifications, as suggested recently by one Minister.
	Citizenship will become a compulsory curriculum subject in September. In a Written Answer, the Minister told me that community involvement is to be included. Following that, should we not aim to encourage everyone to contribute a period of voluntary social work to the community? That way, the habit—and the benefit to each one of us—of helping others would, one hopes, remain an active ingredient for the rest of our lives.
	Whatever the merits of that idea, surely we all need to be more aware that early intervention for those most at risk can have positive results for the local community as well as nationally. A reduction in crime is one obvious and very important objective, as is the unblocking of much needed skills and abilities, which the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, was talking about, for the cultural and economic benefit of us all. A far more fulfilling life would ensue for the young whose talents would be successfully developed and steered in a more socially desirable direction.
	I hope that those are some ways in which we can make more effective use of the human resources already available. I also back the many calls that we have heard for a greater percentage of GDP to be devoted to this most vital of all our investments in this country's future.

Lord Layard: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. Like some others, I shall focus on research in universities. I begin by contrasting what we say with what we do. We say, as we certainly should, that the knowledge economy is crucial. New knowledge is the main source of human progress. Moreover, there is an extraordinary rate of return from research, averaging 50 per cent per annum in the private sector and probably even more in the university sector. It is a very important sphere, to which we pay our respects.
	In contrast, what do we do? Where are British universities in the league of the world's great research universities? As we all know, they are not where they were. The tragic fact is that all the world's top research universities—all of them—are in the United States. The world's leadership in both science and ideas is on the other side of the Atlantic, which is a deeply unhealthy situation. The only consolation for Britain is that we are better than the rest of Europe.
	How did that happen? The cause was simply money and, above all, salaries. Noble Lords have quoted some facts; I shall quote one more. In 1999, the average full professor at Oxbridge and the top London colleges earned £50,000 annually. That is the same as the salary for a grade 7 Whitehall civil servant—or what used to be called a principal, although I shall use grades rather than the old terms used by the noble Lord, Lord Moser. Comparisons with the City would be infinitely more extreme. By comparison, the American universities have adjusted. The top seven American universities pay roughly double what is paid—at both junior and senior levels—by our top five or so universities. The effect on quality has been both predictable and inevitable.
	I should declare an interest: I work at the London School of Economics. Although we are generally considered the best economics department, in the past 20 years we have been able to recruit only three suitable British candidates when trying to fill 40 permanent lecturer appointments. More recently, I offered a job to an idealistic young researcher who wanted to come and work with us, and I thought that he had accepted. However, he felt that he should consult four of his friends whom he considered more academic than him although not working in academia. My friend asked why they were not, and they all gave the same reply: "Don't you know that in Britain there is no future in academia?". That is a formula for national decline.
	Britain is passing up a tremendous opportunity to lead Europe in building up this continent's intellectual capital. It is not too late, but our top universities are the key in this effort. There are three reasons why we should focus on the top universities. First, they give the best value for money in research, as shown by careful analysis of research output conducted by Jonathan Adams. The research shows that, compared with other departments, five-star departments produce double the research output for every pound of research funding. I believe that that justifies a highly selective approach.
	Secondly, top universities are crucial for training the profession. In Britain, almost two thirds of the articles in economics, for example, are written by former PhD students from only three universities—Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE. Thirdly, I believe that the top universities are crucial to the prestige and drawing power of the whole of the profession. In living memory, however, that prestige has never been as low as it is now.
	What can be done? We have to decide first whether we want top research universities in Britain. If we do, we shall have to give them more money. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, income per student in our top universities, excluding research grants, is one quarter that in the top American schools. There is simply no way in which they can compete effectively. The higher education funding councils have to be given extra money to fund the top of the system. I add parenthetically that that must be done through the funding councils rather than the research councils because it is the former that fund the salaries of the leading researchers.
	I therefore propose the following. We should aim to increase funding from one quarter of the US level to one third. Although we probably could not do that, for the reasons already given, for every five-star department, we could group departments into about six faculties and then identify the best-performing universities within each faculty area. It would cost about £200 million to identify the best four, for example, and increase their income by one third. Those are the types of figures that we should be considering if we want to restore our intellectual leadership in the world. It is a smallish price to pay for enabling our country to compete effectively in the world's knowledge industry.
	There are of course other claims on resources. I spend much more time thinking about and working on the problems of young people who never go to university than I do on those who do go. Much has rightly been said about that issue. However, as has also been said, our universities are living on borrowed time. The truly extraordinary fact is that since 1970—a period of 30 years—real salaries in universities have barely increased. Contrast that with what has happened in the competitive professions in the rest of the country. I have asked, but no one can think of any other occupation that has been similarly treated. We shall be practising a collective hypocrisy if we continue to praise the knowledge economy while continuing to treat our knowledge workers in such a manner. The key question is this. What do I say to the next young person who asks me whether there is indeed a future in academia?

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this debate and congratulate him on introducing it so lucidly. I shall, however, take a slightly different line. Education is not just about what happens in schools and universities. Of course properly funded schools and good, well-trained teachers are important, but so is the education, in the widest sense, that a child acquires outside school. So—most importantly of all—is the preparation of a child's mind before it goes to school.
	We must not ignore the role of parents. A child in full-time education today spends about 27 per cent of its time in school. In other words, it spends about three-quarters of its waking hours outside school, the expenditure of that time—probably and hopefully—being influenced by its parents. The role of parents is of course even more important for pre-school children. The Government are doing a lot for pre-school education, but much more help is needed for parents in relation to the other three-quarters of the child's time, or rather more in the case of pre-school education when the child is not in school.
	I should like to speak of an even less well known problem—the educational development of children from birth to three years old. Let no one imagine that this is not an important issue or an important period in a child's life and education: it is the time when the brain is being formed. Recent research made possible by new deep scanning has given neurologists a much clearer understanding of the early development of the child's brain. At birth, on average, a child has 100 billion neurons—brain cells—which are all it will ever have, and it has already formed about 50 trillion synapses, which are the connections between the brain cells.
	By the age of two the number of synapses in the average child's brain will have increased to about 1,000 trillion. The environment in which the baby develops influences the way in which these synapses develop. Some may become "hard wired" by constant use and may become difficult to dislodge later. Others, if they are not used, may atrophy or be diverted to other uses in the brain. For example, the mechanisms which trigger aggressiveness and an aggressive response are among those which are difficult to dislodge later in life. So a tendency to violence and aggression can be built into a child's brain in the first two years of its life. Conversely, if certain parts of a child's cognitive brain are not stimulated and used during the first two years, they may be difficult to build back later. Language skills which were mentioned earlier are but one example.
	Both those findings are of fundamental importance to education. If we define education as it is defined in the education Acts, the healthy development of a child's brain must be a crucial element in education. I believe that education ought to be a "seamless robe" from birth to maturity and beyond. In a society which believes in human rights, surely it must be the right of every child to grow up in an environment which secures the proper and normal development of his or her brain.
	The problem, of course, as with all human rights, is to know who has the duty to deliver them. Some of your Lordships will have heard the second of this year's Reith Lectures in which Professor Onora O'Neill says this:
	"democracy presupposes rights—and rights presuppose duties . . . if any of us is to have rights, others have got to have counterpart duties. The thought that nobody has rights unless others have duties is a precise logical claim".
	Every child has a right to medical care. In this country it is the state which assumes that counterpart duty. The state also accepts the duty to provide education in schools for every child over the age of five. So we must ask ourselves, should the state accept the duty to provide an appropriate environment for the development of a child's brain and his emotions and social skills in the first two or three years of that child's life? It has to be admitted that the state has not made a very good fist of it up to now when it has had children in its care. Parents do not always make a good fist of it either.
	I suggest that the answer must be a partnership between state, parents and communities. Few parents want to fail their children. I believe that there are two main reasons for failure: ignorance and circumstances. Ignorance can be cured by the right kind of education. The kind of ignorance which needs to be addressed includes the following: first, poor understanding of the real needs, emotional, mental and physical, of a young child. Some parents, especially fathers, do not realise how important they are to their child. The second is little or no experience of what a happy, supportive family is like, or of the importance of the support of a partner. The third is lack of the skills to set boundaries of acceptable behaviour through positive parenting rather than by physical and verbal abuse of the child. The fourth is lack of understanding of the positive role of play and conversation in the development of the young child's brain and, of course, unwillingness to seek help.
	External adverse circumstances are susceptible to amelioration. They may include poor and inappropriate housing, especially bed-and-breakfast accommodation, poverty, unemployment, debt and the associated stresses, ill health, including mental ill health, loneliness, boredom, lack of support, addiction to drugs and alcohol, violence and, of course, the lack in some areas of the basic support facilities which the state and the local authority should supply. With all these problems the state, local authorities and communities could do more to help without intruding in any way on the liberty of parents. The Government are going some of the way to address these problems, but if we truly want all our children to have a fair chance to succeed at school and to have equal opportunity in the truest sense, there is a real need to do much more to help nought to three year-olds by helping their parents.

Lord Bragg: My Lords, I, too, should like to join the chorus of approval in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on initiating such an important debate. I thank him for giving me and others the opportunity to speak to the Motion.
	I want to focus my intervention on higher education. In doing so I declare an interest as Chancellor of the University of Leeds. I also want to make some remarks on behalf of Universities UK, the body that represents university vice-chancellors with whom I have been in touch on this issue and this debate.
	We should be proud of the universities in this country. They teach more and more students; produce ever greater quantities of high-quality research; build up increasing links with business and local communities unheard of just a few years ago; and train the thousands of extra nurses, teachers and other professionals the country needs to improve public services. When I visit them, as do many other noble Lords, we find that they are bright, positive, cheerful places. We have decided—finally, it seems to me—that our future lies in our brains. I find it encouraging that the Government are now addressing the engine-room of the intellect; that is, the universities.
	Universities UK has submitted a bill to the Government asking for about £10 billion over the next three years. It seems a huge amount but one that reflects accurately the costs of what the Government want universities to do. Without proper funding there is a danger that universities will not be in a position to achieve some of the Government's own key goals. Let me illustrate that and bring in a little local reference to the University of Leeds.
	First, Leeds, like many other universities, has been innovative in widening participation policies, for example, by the use of Ogden scholarships to encourage youngsters to stay on at school from 16. There are many youngsters throughout the area which Leeds serves who simply do not and cannot stay on at school after 16. Those scholarships enable them to stay on for those two years. We have run a pilot scheme. After the first two years of the scheme, 23 out of 26 Ogden scholars achieved university places. So it can be done but it has to be properly funded. This is not a case for marginal funding. If the Government are to achieve their national aim of 30,000 new students a year over the next eight years, to get to a figure of 50 per cent, they will need to be properly funded as most of those people will come from poor homes.
	Secondly, teaching quality at Leeds has been maintained, as is shown by high scores in teaching assessments. But, again, to continue to achieve those standards, funding, after years of reductions in the unit of resource, must continue to be maintained in real terms. Here I fully agree with my noble friend Lord Moser who knows far more than I do about this subject. In the settlement announced in January that was not the case. There was a small—about 1 per cent—"efficiency gain". Tight squeezes such as that can be strangulating. Art has long followed money and so does knowledge, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Layard, in his apposite remarks.
	Research quality at Leeds and at many other of our universities has risen over the past five or 10 years despite great obstacles. That is shown by the 2001 research assessment exercise. If this had been fully funded for 2003, the University of Leeds would have won an additional £7.5 million. In fact, it will receive an additional £2.5 million. Again, the Comprehensive Spending Review needs to deliver funds to sustain what is a world-class research base. I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, when he said that the only market that we can go for now is upmarket. For that we have to have world-class research.
	An excellent achievement of government policy has been the agreed future investment in scientific infrastructure worth something like £40 million to the University of Leeds over the next two to three years. But if the research budget continues to be underfunded, there will not be the revenue support to utilise this infrastructure. Therefore, the only benefit will go to students of irony.
	Finally, the University of Leeds, like the rest of the sector, exploits its research and works with many agencies, including Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency. The fact is that universities are now a major driving force in increasing the competitiveness of the country. They do not want to lose the momentum that has been achieved because of marginal underfunding in the spending review.
	In sum, the Government are absolutely right to put education so high up the agenda. The inclusion of higher education in the Government's top 10 of their second-term priorities shows a realisation of the sector's importance. I trust that when the Chancellor announces the results of his spending review, the hopes that he has raised will be met with new funds to meet his own priorities, as well as the priorities of those working in our universities. As my noble friend Lord Puttnam said, I can think of nothing that is more important for our future.
	I say yes to education, education, education. Without proper funding, that is an empty cry. With adequate funding, it is a democratic, visionary and dynamic call to arms that is of incalculable benefit for the widest agenda and future of our country.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Dearing for providing this opportunity to discuss education. I shall concentrate on the education of looked-after children. I declare an interest as patron of A Voice for the Child in Care.
	The Government's target for the educational attainment of looked-after children this year is that 50 per cent of them should achieve one GCSE grade A to G. The national average is that 50 per cent of children receive at least five GCSEs of grades A to C. In Germany, 57 per cent of looked-after children achieve their Abitur, which is equivalent to a trio of good A-levels.
	I shall concentrate on a smaller group—5,000 of the 55,000 looked-after children who are in residential units. They are often the most problematic children and therefore deserve special interest. For those children to achieve an adequate education, more resources are needed to develop their carers. Without stability in their home, those children will often be unable to engage in education, whether it be in a large secondary school or a small pupil referral unit. A high priority is placed on stability, but currently many of the staff in those hostels are agency staff, who come and go—who flit in and out.

Lord Northbourne: A disaster.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, that is a disaster, as my noble friend Lord Northbourne points out.
	I request the patience of noble Lords while I recall a visit to a project run by Centrepoint three years ago. I wanted to make that visit because I had been told by outreach workers—those who work directly with young rough sleepers on the street—that it had an outstanding reputation for holding on to the most challenging clients. The building and garden were a shambles but young people were clearly attached to the staff and their home. One young Irishman who I met had been from hostel to street countless times before arriving at Buffy House, but he had spent several months in that setting. A young woman talked proudly of her involvement with a project run by the Prince's Trust. Another female resident had scars on her wrists from previous self-harm, but she was later to win a commission from a City firm to provide artwork for its foyer.
	There was plenty with which to find fault. I have already mentioned the state of the home. Those young people still had a very long way to go and their passage was most uncertain. What was perhaps most remarkable about Buffy House was that in that setting, in which workers cared for the most troubled young people who presented themselves at Centrepoint, its workers had the lowest rate of sickness leave in the whole of the Centrepoint organisation.
	Why was that? What made it different? The manager was very clear in her mind about what singled out her and her team. For several years, she and her staff had been supported each week by an outside consultant. Each week, the staff, as a group, had had the opportunity to speak with a psychotherapist about their experience of the young people. One consequence of that was that the staff thought carefully about every aspect of their work with the children. Every occasion was seized to learn more about their young people and their practice with them.
	Another consequence was that staff were spurred to take studies in that area of work. The manager had entered residential work with those difficult children with no qualifications, as 80 per cent of such carers did previously. Several years later, she had a masters degree in that field. The other staff member who was present that evening was taking a course of study at the Tavistock Clinic.
	In that microcosm, which had many of the ingredients that are associated with good residential care for looked-after children, the staff had a shared philosophy about what they did. They were well supported, they experienced continued professional development and they had a remarkable leader. She was available to them and the clients on the telephone at all times and she radiated confidence and self-assurance.
	I turn to the broader context. In his Budget, the Chancellor made available an increase for social services. For the first time in a Budget, he singled out social services and he regretted their past neglect. The Government's "quality protects" money is being used to train residential care staff up to national vocational qualification level 3. That is most welcome, although one must remember that "quality protects" funding runs out in one or two years.
	However, to make a real difference to the educational prospects of looked-after children in those settings, much more needs to be done to support their carers, particularly those who work with the most troubled children. I look forward to the publication later this year of the Social Exclusion Unit's report on looked-after children and education. I hope that it will look closely at the training, support and development of care staff who work with children in residential settings. I trust that there will be an opportunity for us to debate its findings on the Floor of the House.
	Last night, I encountered two young women—refugees at a Centrepoint hostel. The 18 year-old West African helped me—she gave me advice on my English language. We discussed "The Merchant of Venice" and she quoted Portia. The Kurdish woman explained to me what the "lexis of the semantic field of young women" meant.
	In other countries, being taken into care can mean rescue from poverty and provides the opportunity of a first-rate education. Refugees often teach us the value of a good education when one has experienced trauma and been uprooted. We should do far more to make the protection of a good education available to our looked-after children. Integral to that is to provide support for the carers of those children.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, this debate on resources for education is certainly timely. My noble friend Lord Dearing is to be congratulated on providing an opportunity to review, in the run up to July's Comprehensive Spending Review, the adequacy—or, as I would argue, the inadequacy—of the resources that we in this country devote to education.
	When the Government were first elected to office in 1997, it was on the platform, as a number of noble Lords have reminded them, of "education, education, education". Since then, much has been done and substantial additional resources have been provided to improve the first two legs of that tripod—primary and secondary education. However, much less has been done, and far fewer resources provided, for the essential third leg—higher education—which has become the orphan of the group.
	I therefore make no apology for devoting my contribution to the higher education sector, in which I declare an interest as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. That is not to suggest that the Government have been backward in setting extremely ambitious targets for higher education. Many of them are highly laudable targets, which the universities would wish to achieve—to extend higher education to half of the population, to increase the numbers qualifying in the medical profession and many other such targets. Nor have the Government been backward in piling on universities additional bureaucratic burdens, requiring the allocation of scarce resources.
	However, when it comes to providing resources, the story is a little different. Then, it is all a question of efficiency savings and of reductions in the provisions per head of the student population. As an example, I cite—several other noble Lords have mentioned this—the recently completed research assessment exercise. This complex and laborious process, demanding a substantial allocation of staff resources, revealed that our universities were delivering a world-class performance with major improvements, confirmed by systematic international verification during the period under review.
	But what was the reward when resources came to be allocated? The smallish top, five-star, category maintained its funding in real terms—I repeat: it maintained its funding; there was no increase—while the second, third and fourth categories, which were by far the largest groups, saw their funding reduced by 15, 35 and 65 per cent respectively. Anyone below that was cut off with nothing at all. That is hardly a major incentive for the next research assessment.
	But, rather than looking back, let us look ahead and try to identify what resources will be required if we—that is, the universities and the Government—are to have any hope at all of achieving and delivering the ambitious targets that we have set for ourselves.
	First, there is the target of achieving a 50 per cent participation rate in higher education by 2010. I know that some people question that target and doubt the desirability of having such a high proportion of the population receiving a university education. I am not among them myself. I feel that a Britain which is to hold its own in a knowledge-based world and which is to offer its citizens careers genuinely open to their talents needs to stretch for a target of that nature. But that means providing 30,000 additional student places every year from now to 2010 at a recurrent annual cost of £420 million per year. And it will almost certainly also require an access premium of 20 per cent in addition to the full unit of funding if we are to fulfil the objective of inclusiveness and recruit students disproportionately from those sectors of society which have not hitherto traditionally benefited from higher education. That would cost another £65 million per year.
	Then there is the urgent need to increase investment in health education provision if the ever-more pressing demands of the National Health Service are to be met. We should have no illusions about that. As another noble Lord reminded the House, it takes a considerable period of time to train health professionals. If we do not provide the resources now, we shall not have the doctors, nurses and others when they are needed and all the resources being allocated to the National Health Service will be to no avail. There will be a minimum of £60 million of recurrent funding for that requirement.
	Thirdly, if we cannot modernise pay structures and enhance staff management and training, we shall simply not be able to recruit and retain the staff that universities need in order to have top-quality establishments. I do not imagine that anyone who has spent even a few hours in one of our universities can believe that our academics are overpaid or that the resources available for the management of them are adequate. To achieve something like a satisfactory basis for the future in that respect would require £1,225 million of recurrent expenditure.
	Fourthly, if the academic staff and the students are to be capable of developing to their full potential, there must be a massive investment in teaching, learning and research infrastructure. Plenty of serious analysis has been done by independent consultants, and figures of £6.56 billion for the period up to 2005-06 for teaching and learning infrastructure and £1.7 billion for research infrastructure have been identified.
	I am very well aware that all that adds up to a substantial quantum—some £9.94 billion over the next three-year period, to be exact—and that there are plenty of competing bids from other parts of the public services, including from other parts of the educational sector itself. But it is frankly not serious to pour huge resources into primary and secondary education and then to neglect higher education. And it is not serious to set the universities hugely ambitious targets knowing that they do not have the resources to achieve them.
	I know that the Minister did not greatly appreciate it when, some weeks ago, I described such an approach as "feckless". But that, I am afraid, is what it is. What is surely needed is for the Government to sit down with the universities to work out together what their targets and objectives are, how much achieving them will cost and where the resources are to be found. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to say that that is what is now going to be done before decisions are reached on the Comprehensive Spending Review.
	What we have in higher education, ineluctably, is a public/private partnership. In other sectors, such as transport, the debate may rage as to whether or not that is a good approach. But for higher education there is simply no alternative. No university—not even the most ancient and prestigious among them—can survive without substantial public support.
	But the Government cannot deliver on their objectives for higher education without the willing and effective contribution of a huge network of independent and autonomous institutions which are determined to maintain high standards and provide excellence. For any such partnership to succeed, there must be adequate investment. The Government can quite reasonably look to the universities to stimulate more investment from their links with industry and from their alumni through development campaigns and to be more efficient about the way that they allocate and spend the resources. The universities are doing all that to the best of their ability.
	But there is no way in which those private sector resources will see the universities through; nor will student fees, which are, in any case, being reviewed by the Government, and I do not imagine that the Minister will astonish us by telling us that they are going to be increased. Therefore, one comes back to the question of investment by the public sector—the heart of this debate.
	I hope that the Government will not overlook in their deliberations the key role which higher education plays as one of Britain's largest and most dynamic service industries. The advantages that can accrue to the United Kingdom incorporated from our use of what is now the global language of higher education and research are large and growing. But those advantages will not simply drop into our lap. They will need to be won by continued excellence and competitivity. There are plenty of others out there competing for them, not only in fellow English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, but more widely. Twelve per cent of our student population and 39 per cent of full-time postgraduates come from overseas.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me? We are restricted to seven minutes each in this debate.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, I am so sorry. I shall draw to a close if I may.
	The point that I am making is that the new sector of the universities as a service industry is worth nurturing. I noticed that in an article in the Observer 10 days ago the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister said:
	"You cannot have world-class schools and hospitals if you are not prepared to pay for them".
	That quotation seems to me to illustrate two key points. One certainly cannot have world-class universities if one is not prepared to pay for them.

Noble Lords: Order!

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, I am so sorry. I am on my last sentence if noble Lords will permit me to complete it, but, of course, I shall not complete it if they do not wish me to do so. May I complete it?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord has had his time. He has seven minutes—that is all.

Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, there are many pleasurable features about being a Member of your Lordships' House. One of the less favourable aspects is to put down your name for a speech, as we have all done today, and then come to the Chamber and find that, out of 22 speakers, you are 22nd. I say that because, as we all know, speeches in this Chamber are of a very high level and one can guarantee that, in the carefully produced speech that one has prepared, the points which one makes will have been dealt with at least six times before it is one's turn to speak.
	However, in this case, I am glad to say that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, who mentioned further education a number of times—a subject with which I intend to deal—at least left me room to raise some of the details. In the few minutes that I have, that is what I intend to do.
	The most neglected sector of the education service is that of further education; that is, for the age range of 16 to 19 year-olds. Nearly 4 million students attend further education colleges in England and, as in other areas of education, standards vary a great deal. My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Lifelong Learning said recently that only half the students going through FE colleges succeed in finishing and passing their courses. Perhaps I should say that some doubt has been expressed about that figure. If it is even anywhere near that figure—I suppose it is—that is a devastating comment on that particular sector of education.
	We have to ask how that position could arise. I believe that there are a number of reasons, but I say immediately—I mean this sincerely—that blame cannot be laid at the door of the teachers and lecturers in further education. In my experience in this sector, which is fairly considerable, I find them to be as conscientious and enthusiastic as teachers in other sectors of education. However, I make one comment on that aspect. Staff in further education do not usually receive the training which teachers in other sectors receive. I believe I am right in saying that up until fairly recently some did not have any kind of training whatever, but that has improved. Perhaps the Minister can say something about that when she replies.
	It is probable that that training would be somewhat different from other teacher training because of the circumstances in which some, indeed most, FE teachers are recruited. Nevertheless, there are some principles which govern the whole process of learning from infant stage to university of which all teachers should be made aware. Perhaps the real problem with further education is the serious long-term underfunding; an aspect which has been talked about for some considerable time in the field of further education and was frequently referred to in yesterday's lobbying of Parliament by FE teachers and managers. Perhaps some of your Lordships were there yesterday and realise the tremendous impact on the people concerned.
	The Association of Colleges claims that colleges receive 20 per cent less funding for every individual who goes through an A-level programme in colleges than schools receive for their A-level students, comparing like with like. If that is correct—I follow these matters fairly closely and think there are grounds for believing it—it is a most serious situation which needs urgent attention from the Government. I am sure that my noble friend will have something to say on that when she replies. It will require a huge sum to redress the balance for FE to that of schools and universities. The Government said that they are spending more. Some of us would like to know exactly how much more.
	Can the Minister say why there is such a difference in funding for FE? Presumably the Government feel that there is a reason. FE has long been the poor relation—I hope I shall be forgiven for using that phrase—in the field of education. Now is surely the time to try to correct it. I understand that colleges work on the 1995-96 core funding levels. If that is the case, it is inevitable that the quality of their work will be affected. Indeed, it is incredible that they achieve the level of success they do despite the difficulties.
	There is all-round praise from the Learning and Skills Council, the annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools and the National Audit Office. All of those bodies are aware of the basic handicap endured by the colleges. Your Lordships may know that HM Chief Inspector of Schools has been inspecting FE colleges since April 2001. Obviously, findings show that there are weaknesses, as is usual in all inspections of education establishments, but I give two of the inspectors' findings:
	"The level of academic and personal support offered to students is high, and priority is given to ensuring that students are well prepared to progress to higher level courses".
	That sentence is of great importance. One of the basic aims of which the colleges are proud is laying the foundation for higher education. The annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools states:
	"Teaching and learning were found to be satisfactory in over 91 per cent of lessons".
	As a former Chief Inspector who has had to deal with many HMI reports, perhaps I may say that that is high praise indeed and something which we should not forget. That is not to say that there are not shortcomings; there are, but they measure slightly against what I have just said.
	I see that my time is up. I know that we shall receive detailed replies from the Minister on the points I have raised.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, we have had a good debate today, even if there have been occasions when I thought that we had been carried forward to next week's debate on universities. I join others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating the debate, which, with the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review in July, is extraordinarily timely.
	As everyone knows, since 1992 the Liberal Democrats have put a great deal of emphasis on the concept of investing in education. We have deliberately used the term "investing in education" because we have always felt that spending money now reaps rewards later. In terms of considering the rewards from spending resources on education, a number of Members of your Lordships' House, including the noble Lords, Lord Dearing, Lord Bragg and Lord Puttnam, emphasised what I call the competitive element. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said, the future lies in using our brains. We can no longer compete by brawn; we have to compete by brain. We must invest in those brains if we are to remain competitive with other industrialised countries.
	However, in putting emphasis on investment in education, the Liberal Democrats think not just in terms of being competitive. We on the Left still feel that education is a vital route to equality of opportunity, and that equality of opportunity is still a good objective. In new Labour-speak it is a question of overcoming poverty and social exclusion. We also feel that education is a vital route to self-fulfilment of the individual. Paddy Ashdown used a term which I did not like: empowerment of the individual. I much prefer the term self-fulfilment. One gets much more enjoyment out of life if one can read. Education opens many doors.
	We have heard much about statistics. There is no doubt that somewhere in the region of 5 per cent of our GDP currently goes into education, broadly defined. GDP is currently about £1,000 billion. Therefore, 1 per cent of GDP is £10 billion, and 0.1 per cent is £1 billion. We are talking of annual figures. If we can raise the amount of money that is put into education from the current 5 per cent to somewhere in the region of the OECD average, which is currently about 5.8 per cent but by 2005 is more likely to be 6 per cent, we are looking at an annual injection of about £10 billion per year.
	I make a plea to the Minister for better statistics on what is being spent on education. From the Budget Red Book one cannot find out that information because the figures are mixed up. We cannot get the figures from the Blue Book because we do not know whether what is stated is in terms of financial years or calendar years. May we have a good and consistent set of statistics on precisely how much is being spent in each sector of education? Noble Lords may know that in the financial year 2000-01, there was, indeed, an underspend of £1.5 billion on the education budget but we do not know where that £1.5 billion came from. Perhaps the Minister can tell us. That is a great deal of money. As the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said, it is vital that we spend money on those whom the system has failed so often. It would be marvellous if we could use that £1.5 billion in that way.
	The debate has concerned the question of whether we have the necessary resources in order for the Government to fulfil their targets. The targets that they set in their manifesto relate primarily to the secondary school and further education sectors. They concern improving the quality of education in secondary schools; increasing the participation rate after the school leaving age of 16; and—we have heard a great deal about this—achieving a 50 per cent participation rate in higher education, particularly among social classes 4 and 5.
	One of the problems is that we cannot achieve that latter target unless we improve the former. There are not enough people in social classes 4 and 5 with the requisite qualifications coming forward to go to university. It is therefore absolutely vital that we improve the quality of teaching in secondary schools.
	I return to a point that I have made time and time again. I do not understand why the Government are putting around £500 million into specialist schools, most of which serve middle-class areas and the middle-classes, rather than putting that money into the schools that need it the most. More than 30,000 children each year leave school with no qualifications. That occurs particularly in the inner cities, although I know that the Excellence in Cities initiative is helping a great deal. But other schools that are regarded sometimes as failing schools also need more money.
	The average amount that is spent on secondary school pupils in this country is £2,600. In private schools it is £6,000. We should be spending £6,000 per pupil in those failing schools. It is those pupils who need this money, not often the middle-class children. I make that plea from my heart because I feel very strongly about it.
	Perhaps I may also pick up the question of teacher recruitment raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. There are currently 5,000 teacher vacancies in secondary schools in England and Wales. Having on average, as we do, 30 pupils per class, that means that 150,000 pupils are currently without teachers.
	I should also like to refer to the Roberts report on science and engineering. Are noble Lords aware that 60 per cent of those teaching physics at key stage 4 have no degree in physics; that 30 per cent do not even have an A-level in physics; and that 50 per cent of those teaching chemistry do not have a degree in that subject? That is a terrible indictment of our secondary schools system. The Roberts report makes it quite clear that more resources are needed.
	I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Quirk. Are there not ways in which we could bring in mature people from other careers to help? For example, in my own area—Guildford—many people with draftsman skills were made redundant by British Aerospace. They could be brought in to teach some of the subjects. There is a crisis. We need to do something about it.
	I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, mentioned further education. The 14 to 19 year-old sector is crucial. The big skill gaps are not in degree level qualifications but in level 3 qualifications—the A-level equivalent in vocational subjects. It is in this area that year after year we have failed. We must now succeed. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand. I think that our further education colleges do a great job and need to be encouraged. But they need more resources. We need to have a look at their teachers' salaries. Many jobs have been casualised. Often staff receive salaries which are little above the minimum wage.
	Teachers in secondary schools who cover the same area—there is a good deal of overlap at A-level—are receiving more money. Their salaries are higher than those in further education colleges. There is currently a leaching of resources from further education colleges. One is paid more teaching in a primary school than one is in a further education college. There is a great need for more resources to go into those colleges. These vocational qualifications are vital to us. Very shortly I shall stimulate a debate on the shortage of plumbers. Unless we train these people, noble Lords may ponder on the issue of who will do one's plumbing in future. Currently, we have fewer than 6,000 people training to level 3, which is the A-level equivalent in plumbing. There is an enormous problem.
	I was going to talk more about the university sector, but we have heard a good deal about that. I have been a university teacher. I declare an interest in that I think I am still a member of the Association of University Teachers. The work is terribly paid. Again, we are paying our schoolteachers more than we offer young people, of whom we demand a doctorate, to work in our universities.
	As a woman, the universities have totally failed to implement the Bett report. I know what the Minister will say. She will turn around to all of us with an interest in universities—I know because I have asked so many Questions in this House—and say to us, "It is nothing to do with me, my Lords. Each university employs its own people. It is up to the universities to pay what they wish to pay". That is precisely what the Government say. They know perfectly well that the universities cannot pay this money unless the Government put more money into them.
	Our university system is in danger of collapsing unless more money goes into it. We have an excellent science base. Again, that is in danger of collapsing unless we put more money into it. All your Lordships' pleas are utterly right: let us have more investment in education.

Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on initiating this debate. The noble Lord, as we all know, brings to this House many years of public and private sector experience and in particular is renowned for the Dearing report on higher education and his close involvement with national curriculum issues. The noble Lord has focused today on the need for high-quality skills education. He has posed the question: are the resources sufficient to support teachers and students in order to meet the Government's policies for education and skills? The noble Lord visited the past and the present. He took a look forward to the future with energy and his usual passion for the subject. We thank him for that.
	I want to touch on a number of reforms which have made a contribution to raising standards. The introduction of the national curriculum, even with some early teething problems, brought to an end the ability of schools to allow children to leave school without having studied—for example—a science, a language, history or geography, and, all too frequently, without any meaningful qualification.
	The introduction of systematic assessment and testing and the setting up of Ofsted under its first chief inspector, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, made it possible for Ministers, teachers, parents, students and for the wider community to know just what was being achieved by children in our schools. Also, more information was provided about the performance and the management of schools.
	The Government have added to that by introducing the inspection of the performance of local authorities. We welcome that. The problems resulting from the bureaucracy that accompanied the introduction of the national curriculum and the need for greater flexibility, particularly at key stage 4, was addressed by my noble friend Lord MacGregor as Secretary of State for Education and further refinements were carried out by his successors.
	Additional choices for the 14-16 year age group were introduced through the development of national vocational qualifications and general national vocational qualifications which incorporated a more applied and vocational approach to learning.
	City technology colleges were introduced by my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking. These paved the way for the introduction of specialist schools with an emphasis on subjects such as science and technology, the arts and music, languages and sport.
	The devolution of management to schools through the grant-maintained school system and greater financial autonomy for all schools resulted in better decisions being taken at the school level, consistent with school-based priorities.
	There was also a revolution in the rights of parents and the public to receive information. As a percentage of GDP, as stated throughout the debate, funding for education during the five years up to 1997 exceeded that of the five years since 1997.
	The number of students entering higher education was increased from one in eight to one in three. Students from poorer families received up to 50 per cent of their maintenance costs through government grant and did not have to pay tuition fees. The Government, since coming to office, have retained and even built upon many of those reforms. Unfortunately, self-management of schools was reversed. That has led to a high degree of central control which will increase yet further if the current Education Bill going through this House is passed in its present form.
	The question posed by this debate must be considered against the background of concern on the part of teachers, parents and governors. The issue of teacher shortages remains serious. There are fewer applications to fill each school vacancy—especially, as has been said, in key subjects such as maths, science and languages. An unacceptable number of temporary supply teachers is employed in our schools and too many teachers are now teaching subjects for which they were not trained. All of that will impact on the quality of education.
	On Radio 4 today, the concerns of the headmaster of a highly successful comprehensive school in Fareham that had lost 38 teachers during the year, 15 of whom—all of them young teachers—had left teaching completely, were dismissed as atypical and unnecessary whinging by a Labour Member of Parliament, Mr Barry Sheerman. His reaction was breathtaking in its complacency. There is also real concern about the increasing level of indiscipline in the classroom, against which teachers have few sanctions and little defence. Truancy rates are unacceptably high.
	Head teachers and governors are concerned about core funding for their schools. That concern is shared by the Association of Colleges, representing further education colleges, which, like the school sector, argues for a greater proportion of funding currently held back and controlled by central government to be allocated direct to schools and colleges. There is an irony when the Secretary of State accuses local authorities of not passing funding to schools. The Government are more culpable of that charge and would do well to heed their own advice.
	It is a widely held view within schools and further and higher education institutions that the level and cost of bureaucracy is far too high. The bidding process for the increasing number of government-controlled initiatives is time-consuming, wasteful and costly.
	Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, has done excellent work on a soon-to-be-published pamphlet exposing the way in which the system allows government at national and local level to eat away at core funding. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House—if not today, by letter—exactly how many centrally funded initiatives have been announced and at what cost in each year since 1997.
	As has been said, the proposed flexibility, allowing for a better match of aptitude and ability with additional high-quality vocational options, planned for 16 to 19 year-olds, is to be welcomed. However, the proposals raise expectations. I know that it is stating the obvious to remind the Government that schools and colleges will require additional support if they are to deliver effectively. Greater vocational options will require high-quality syllabuses to be with teachers in good time. More training and more up-to-date equipment and materials will also have to be provided.
	On an administrative but important point, the logistics of transporting secondary school pupils, especially those in rural areas, who may be time-tabled for classes partly in school and partly in the workplace and/or in a further education college, will be complex and expensive. Who will be responsible for the arrangements and must the costs be met from schools' budgets?
	The introduction of individual learning accounts, which was designed to improve technology training, turned out to be a costly disaster. It failed miserably because the Government's scheme was flawed from the outset. We know that genuine learning providers have been badly let down—not to mention the lost opportunities for potential students. What has been the cost of learning providers' losses? How much money has been lost due to fraudulent activity under the ILA scheme and when will the replacement scheme be announced?
	Turning only briefly—due to time constraints—to higher education, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Moser, Lord Sutherland and Lord Layard, about university salaries. Unless that issue is addressed, the quality of higher education staff will be affected, especially at the doctorate level. I must declare a vested interest as the mother of a doctorate researcher in a scientific field. It is only family embarrassment that prevents my telling the House precisely what he is paid.
	The Government's target of 50 per cent of young people entering university has been seriously queried. Recent attempts by the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education in another place to suggest a system of social engineering to force universities to meet government targets are frankly risible. If the Government are serious about more young people from poorer backgrounds having access to university, improving their educational qualifications at school to equip them for entry is the answer.
	It was the Government themselves who disadvantaged students from low-income backgrounds. Having given categoric assurances during the 1997 election campaign that they had no plans to introduce tuition fees or to abolish maintenance grants, within days of coming into office they turned down the excellent proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, abolished maintenance grants completely and introduced tuition fees. We now await new proposals with baited breath.
	To punish universities that refuse to compromise standards to indulge in social engineering is wrong. More than that, it is patronising to the very young people whom the Government purport to help.
	The final sting in the tail for education is the imposition of a 1 per cent national insurance levy on employers as well as on individuals in work. Local authorities will have to find a further £300 million, the bulk of which will have to be paid for out of the cash grants to schools announced in the Chancellor's Budget.
	Education is a liberator. Its purpose is to pass on knowledge and to deepen the intellect as well as to develop applied skills. I do not doubt for a minute the Government's intention to raise standards and to raise the aspirations of those in education. Those are honourable aims concerning the quality of education for all. However, to make them a reality, much of the wise counsel that has emanated from this debate should be inwardly digested.
	The Government—in particular, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills—should let go the reins by reducing central government control and freeing up professionals to teach. They should cut red tape and bureaucracy; they should resist the temptation to announce initiatives by the week; they should consider a radical reduction in the size of the department; and they should pass on the resultant savings directly to schools and colleges.
	That would be welcomed by teachers, governors and parents alike, and it would go a long way to achieving the aims underlying the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, at the beginning of this excellent debate.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating this debate. Indeed, I am always thanking him; he so eloquently makes the case for investment in education. I am also grateful to all other noble Lords for their contribution to what has been a stimulating debate, especially the reminiscence of "The Goon Show" from the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. Of course, I heard the programme only in repeats, not in the original broadcast.
	I agree with much that noble Lords have said, and apologise that speed must be my guardian; I shall answer as quickly as I can. I agreed with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said and pay tribute to her for the role that she has played in developments in education.
	I begin by re-affirming the Government's commitment to the education and skills of this country. That remains a top priority. To quote the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, we believe in "bold decisions". We know that to be a successful country competing in the global marketplace we need a better educated and more highly skilled workforce. Demand for skilled workers is growing and estimates show that by 2004 we will need about another 150,000 information and communications technology workers alone. By 2010, about 55 per cent of new additional jobs will require a degree. As the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and my noble friend Lord Puttnam said, we must succeed by competing successfully with the new or existing economic tigers—and do so by raising our game.
	There are also wider issues. In society as a whole, education helps to reduce crime rates, improve health, lower infant mortality and increase social tolerance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, it is also about self-fulfilment.
	The past five years have witnessed improvements in education. Our commitment was to raise standards and lay the foundation for a world-class education system. We have begun to succeed.
	Like the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, I am aware of many international comparisons and I am wary of trying to compare unlike systems. We have heard many statistics and figures today. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, quoted the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, who was of course accurate, but her figures include both public and private expenditure. Noble Lords will know that in Germany and the United States, in particular, private expenditure is especially high. That expenditure was on institutions and excluded expenditure on student support. Spending as a proportion of GDP is 4.9 per cent for the UK, 5.1 per cent for the United States, 6 per cent for France and 4.6 per cent for Germany.
	In the past three years, education spending in the UK has risen faster than in France or Germany. As noble Lords have said, the proportion of GDP is set to rise to 5.3 per cent in 2003-04. Most importantly, we must have a reality check: what do those figures mean for pupil funding in schools? They mean that pupil funding has risen by £670 per pupil in real terms.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked about centrally funded initiatives. We have set targets for LEA resources. Some 87 per cent of the resources should be delegated to individual schools. I will write to the noble Baroness with the details. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, asked for the figures for the consistent spend in the department. The annual report is due to be published on 16th May and will have all the detailed figures in it. If she can wait that long, I commend it to her.
	There are three basic principles behind the underspend in the department. First, there is slippage, which, last year, included the implementing of the teachers' threshold. There is also reorganisation, under which responsibilities have been moved between departments, and initiatives that have been ring-fenced but have not yet been able to spend their resources. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, and other noble Lords will be aware that Sure Start is one of the initiatives in that category.
	Capital funding has more than quadrupled since 1997. It is up to £3 billion this year. We aim to ensure that school buildings are fit for the teaching and learning needs of the 21st century. We want to make sure that they have the most positive impact on pupil and community achievement. We are making £6.5 billion available over the next two years, including £1.7 billion of PFI credits. In the Budget, the Chancellor announced £85 million additional capital funding. I say to my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington that FE colleges will receive an equal proportion of that amount.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, talked about the plight of the 20 per cent of children whom society fails at school. We know that getting a good education is the key to breaking free from the cycle of deprivation. We must equip everyone with the education, skills, support and equality of opportunity that they need to succeed and avoid the risk of exclusion. In doing so, we will create the social and educational inclusion that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth spoke about. He said that his experience in the Isle of Wight demonstrated the importance of support for children with special educational needs. I agree wholeheartedly with him.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke eloquently—as he has, importantly, often done in your Lordships' House—about the plight of looked-after children. He made some really important points. We have designated teachers for such children. We believe that that will make a difference, and we recognise that the target for their educational achievement is low. It is a beginning, not an end. I work closely with the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Jacqui Smith, in a group that we have convened to look across government to see what more we can do to support such children.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, talked about the crucial early years—from nought to three—in the development of children. He eloquently made the case for the involvement of parents and of government resources. Through programmes such as Sure Start—I thank my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen for her support for the programme—we seek to improve the health, development and well-being of young children. We know that, by improving the social and emotional development of our disadvantaged young children, as well as their ability to learn, we will give them the best possible start in life. That is the kind of joined-up thinking referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.
	The National Childcare Strategy, currently being reviewed throughout government under my chairmanship, has created 484,000 new childcare places. It, too, is concerned with how we make sure that we join up our thinking, something referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. We want to ensure that, by 2004, every lone parent who wants to go to work is offered a childcare place.
	I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for her support for our work in nursery education. There is funding for nursery education for every four year-old whose parents want it, and we are on track to provide funding for every three year-old whose parents want it by 2004. All those initiatives are geared to giving the under-fives the best possible start in life.
	One of the most resounding and tangible achievements of the Government has been the improvement in standards and achievement in our primary schools. In 1997, almost half of 11 year-olds were leaving primary schools without the ability to read. The investment of £200 million a year in literacy and numeracy has paid off. Three out of four 11 year-olds are up to speed in English, and seven out of 10 achieve the required standards in maths. There is more to do. We have challenging targets for the future because we understand how important it is that every child reaches secondary school able to access the curriculum. To help children learn more effectively, we have invested to take 500,000 children out of overcrowded classes and put them into classes of 30 or fewer.
	I can say to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that only 331 infant classes have 31 children or more. Of those, 249 exceeded the target for permitted reasons—for example, the children may have moved in-year. In small schools, for which administrative costs are proportionately high, we have invested £240 million for the next three years.
	My noble friend Lady Gibson of Market Rasen talked about the teaching of modern foreign languages. We have debated that in your Lordships' House. I say categorically to her that we are developing a strategy to ensure that, within 10 years, it will be an entitlement for every primary school age child to learn a modern foreign language. I am happy to write to the noble Baroness or discuss the details with her at any time.
	I also thank my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen for her support for the National Healthy School Standards. She is right that it promotes a whole-school approach to health.
	We want to build on the excellent work in primary schools to raise standards in our secondary sector. Our specialist schools will not be found only in middle-class areas but are part of a range of ways in which we hope to improve the sector. We are making the commitment that the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, seeks.
	We wish to see more 16 year-olds staying on at school, getting better GCSEs and going on to higher education. Although 50 per cent of pupils now achieve five good GCSEs, 50 per cent do not. The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, made some important points about the consequences of our failure to deal with that issue. The challenge is to raise participation and support the retention of young people in post-16 education.
	Estimates have shown that, at key stage 3—the middle years, 11 to 14—two out of five pupils fail to make the expected progress in the year following their transition from primary school. The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, may find that that explains some of the figures that she gave for those two schools.
	I hope that your Lordships will consider it fair if I say that, in the past, our pupils were sometimes expected to fit the education system, rather than the system being designed to fit their needs. We know that all children are different; they learn in different ways and at different paces. For our 14 to 19 year-olds, we want to introduce new pathways to learning and a revised curriculum. We want to give as much credibility to vocational as to academic routes and provide guidance and advice services. Those measures are all part of a package designed to transform that phase of learning.
	I could not agree more with what the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said. Industry needs diverse skills, and vocational GCSEs are an important part of that. The Connexions service has an important part to play in supporting pupils and helping them to understand industry. It is because we believe that it is an important area that we have put £25 million into education-business links, including the opportunity for work experience.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, also referred to the issue of transport. I am in the process of writing to the noble Baroness on the subject, but I will say to her that we are considering pilot schemes to see how we can manage things effectively and ensure that we do not disadvantage young people, while recognising that there are costs involved.
	My noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, raised the important issue of further education. We value what the further education sector has to offer and are providing substantial increases in further education funding. It is a key part of the 14 to 19 strategy. I agree that it should work in partnership with schools. I say to my noble friend that extra funding of £527 million is planned for further education for 2001-02. In real terms, that is an increase of 12 per cent, with a further increase of 3 per cent this year. The total allocation to the Learning and Skills Council for further education in 2002-03 is £4.3 billion. The noble Lord may, however, be right: not only has further education been underfunded, it has been undervalued.
	My noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington also raised the issue of FE training. From 2001, all new entrants to FE must hold on appointment or acquire within a tight timescale an approved teaching qualification. All costs of training, including supply cover to enable new entrants to acquire a teaching qualification, are covered by the Standards Fund. Some £80 million is available to colleges this year from the Standards Fund to support continuing professional development for staff. That money will provide match funding and will double the impact of the colleges' investment in their staff.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, talked of the importance of the Cassels report. We are implementing the main recommendations made by that committee to ensure that all modern apprenticeships meet the highest standards. We have already announced an additional £180 million over the three financial years 2001 to 2004 to support and develop a new generation of modern apprenticeships. And we do indeed support the University for Industry.
	The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, made some important comments about workforce education and training. We know that already employers make a substantial contribution to workforce development, but this expenditure is not uniformly distributed. The lowest skilled still tend to miss out and small firms are less likely to offer development opportunities.
	There have been many successful initiatives. The Investors in People standard has been one example. In the Budget, my right honourable friend the Chancellor announced an additional £30 million to encourage take-up of this standard, especially in small businesses.
	I agree with my noble friend Lord Haskel that the issue of partnership with business is crucial. A number of noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, spoke of the need for partnerships between different aspects of government, health, education and the voluntary sector to support our children. I refer to government, local education authorities, schools, HE, FE, adult learning and the excellent challenge of partnership between schools, FE and HE.
	We also recognise that there is much to be done with our adults, 7 million of whom lack basic skills. It is a big challenge but the price of failure is bigger. Those adults represent, in a sense, our past failures; the 20 per cent to which the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, referred. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, some of the children we failed have arrived in our prison system.
	The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, spoke of the prisoners' learning and skills unit based in the department. I take on board his points about Level 1 and Level 2 but we have been trying to establish a dramatic improvement in the quality and quantity of prison education and training. The partnership we have established will ensure that all prisoners have access to education and training in prison and that on release they have gained skills and qualifications as well as personal, social and life skills to hold down a job and resettle.
	I take entirely the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Blatch, about recruitment and retention of teachers. I have said many times in your Lordships' House, and with support from your Lordships' House, that we owe an enormous debt to our teachers. Our education system will only ever be as good as those who work in it. I know that public sector pay has recently been discussed a great deal, but a good experienced teacher is now taking home a salary 30 per cent higher than in 1997 and all teachers have benefited from pay rises above the rate of inflation.
	I have always acknowledged that we have teacher shortages and noble Lords will not be satisfied until we have filled the vacancies, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Warmsley, as regards maths and science and in other subjects such as languages and religious education. Golden hellos, training bursaries and the starter-home initiative are all part of the wide package of measures to increase the recruitment and retention of the workforce. They are beginning to work.
	I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that in the Budget last week the Chancellor announced £87 million to help cut bad behaviour from the classroom. It is one of teachers' top concerns, a cause of low morale and for some leaving the profession.
	We are also supporting teachers in other ways. We have recruited an additional 25,000 classroom assistants; we now have 94,000. We have given more than 100,000 teachers and heads access to laptops and provided funds to reduce bureaucracy—important points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch and Lady Howe. I know that we need to maintain that momentum and to do all that we can to improve the lot of our teachers.
	The good news is that national statistics published by my department today show that teacher numbers are up by 9,400 since January 2001, the biggest single-year increase in more than 20 years. There are also now nearly 500 fewer vacancies in London. The teacher vacancy rate in London is now down to 2.6 per cent from 3.5 per cent.
	The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, spoke of teacher training. The number of people starting teacher training courses has risen by 5 per cent on last year's figures, which were up 8 per cent on the previous year. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, we need to offer more flexible routes to encourage mature applicants; those people looking for a change of career, classroom assistants, experienced teachers without QTS or those with family responsibilities—clear pathways. The Teacher Training Agency is charged with making teaching more representative of the wider community. For example, its corporate plan set the target of increasing the proportion of minority ethnic trainees from 7 to 9 per cent by 2005-06.
	My noble friend Lady Gibson raised issues contained in the European Union sub-committee's report, Working in Europe: Access for all. I am advised that Eurostat is looking to improve that data to provide consistent data across the EU. Over and above that, I can reassure the noble Baroness that my officials are considering the issue and keeping an eye on its progress.
	Higher education is a more mixed picture. I am grateful for the eloquence with which so many noble Lords spoke of that. Our target of 50 per cent of all under 30s to enter higher education is a challenging one, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, indicated. It is one which clearly has complex funding implications; for instance, how to establish the right balance of contribution between state, student and family.
	That is why last October we initiated a review of higher education finance. In thanking the noble Lords, Lord Moser, Lord Layard and Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, for their contributions, perhaps I may say that we have included research in the review. I recognise what the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, said about the combination of training and research, although I will want to read with more care some of her other remarks on widening access.
	While recognising that graduates can expect to earn considerably more than non-graduates, we particularly need to show that there are proper support mechanisms for students from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds so that they are not prevented from entering higher education. The good news is that we have a record number of students entering higher education—87,000 more in 2001 compared with 1996-97.
	In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, we are investing in higher education. For the first time in a decade it has risen in real terms. We have provided £1.7 billion of publicly planned funding to universities and higher education colleges over the six years to 2003-04.
	Noble Lords spoke of the research assessment exercise which took place. More than half—55 per cent—of research staff now work in departments which contain work of international excellence. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Bragg, Lord Hannay, Lord Browne, Lord Northbourne and Lord Layard, on some of the issues raised.
	The noble Lord, Lord Browne, spoke of the need for our commitment to support excellent research. The Government are doing so. The research funding system always rewards the best funding research wherever it is found. But there is a question of how we look at that in the future spending review.
	I also want to point to the issue of academic salaries. In response to the question posed by my noble friend Lord Layard about academic salaries, I confirm that our spending plans—and I will not refer to the Bett report—include £50 million, rising to £110 million in 2002 and £170 million in 2003, to support increases in academic and non-academic pay. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, should answer the young person who asked him whether he should take a job in academia, "Yes".
	I will conclude by saying that the issue of the independent learning account is important. There are no losses on rights or claims and arrangements are in place to pay all outstanding claims. The budget was £271.5 million. I hope that that information will be of use to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch.
	The Government's commitment to education is clear; we have achieved a lot and we are not afraid to admit that there is still much more to do. We have laid the foundations for the next stage of transformation. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for initiating the debate. I conclude with a misquote of a quotation: "Let it be said that society's failures in education are that the past was another country. They did things differently there".

Lord Dearing: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. My 1,000 trillion synapses are amazed at the erudition and the passion that has been shown. I agree so much with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that our concern is not merely economic. It is about developing a human being.
	On this occasion, we had in mind the triennial funding review. I am conscious that the Chancellor in reading the debate—and of course he will—might be thinking that we are pitching for more money for education. We are pitching for the wealth of the nation. We are seeking very clear economic objectives.
	When I refer to the nation, I want to pick up on the social point; that of one nation. Not only must we invest in those who succeed, but in those whom we have failed. Otherwise they cannot become part of one nation. So this debate has shown as much concern for those who lose out as for those who can become doctoral students. In conclusion, I very much agree with the point that was developed by my noble friend Lord Browne of Madingley, that the wealth of a nation also needs research-rich and powerful universities. We may be reputation-rich, but a reputation will fade unless it is sustained by reality.
	I shall now say my final sentence, for I know not what would happen if I did not do so. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Children and Young People

Lord Eames: rose to consider the current protection of children and young people in the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, it is my privilege to introduce this debate on the protection of children and young people in the United Kingdom. Hardly a day passes without detailed media coverage of suffering children in some form: neglected or unprotected children; children from broken homes; children living or, should I say, existing in areas of poverty or social neglect; abused children, and especially children abused by those supposedly caring for them; and unwanted children, to say nothing of those young people who find themselves before our courts on serious charges. The television constantly reminds us of the crying faces of children in refugee camps, the child soldiers of war, the orphaned children of the Middle East and the matchstick children of famine.
	The children of the world are this generation's global face of tragedy. But quite apart from those pictures from abroad, the situation in our own country challenges all to ask: when we talk of the just society, are we also as ready to talk about the compassionate society? There are many areas of concern which no doubt will emerge in our debate, but let all we say this evening stem from the fact that any condition, any policy and any action which denies a child the God-given gift of the freedom of a happy childhood must be confronted, addressed and removed.
	First, I want to refer to child poverty in the United Kingdom. In 1999, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated:
	"Child poverty is a scar on the soul of Britain".
	Today, almost one-third of our children, some 3.9 million, live in relative poverty. In 1979, the child poverty rate was 14 per cent, while today it is 31 per cent. We have one of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialised world. Along with many others such as the Save the Children Fund and the Children's Society, I welcome the Government's commitment to halve the level of child poverty by 2010 and to eradicate it completely by 2020. In that respect, the recent Budget contained measures that I am certain will boost the incomes of families with children and thus remove more children from the poverty trap.
	For example, from October 2002, child allowances in income support and jobseeker's allowance are to increase by £3.50 a week. Child tax credit will integrate all the existing income-related elements of support for children. Families with incomes of under £13,000 per annum are to receive the maximum child tax credit. From June, working families' tax credit is to increase by £2.50 a week, while income support is to be extended to low-paid fathers on paternity leave, who are not entitled to statutory maternity pay from April 2003. I welcome those provisions.
	However, a year ago the Government stated that, as a result of tax and benefit reforms announced in the last Parliament, over 1 million children would be lifted out of poverty. Yet on 11th April, the Department for Work and Pensions released figures which showed that between 1996-97 and 2000-01, the number of children living in poverty fell by only 500,000. I am convinced that eventually child poverty in the United Kingdom can be eliminated. It will require, among other measures, that the new child tax credit is set sufficiently high. As a recent statement from Save the Children emphasised, the increased child tax credit levels will prevent only the poorest children from falling further behind unless the initial rate is set high enough to lift all children out of poverty. Nevertheless, it must encourage noble Lords that some 300,000 fewer children are now living in workless homes.
	The protection and well-being of children is a question for the conscience of our nation. We must recognise that there is more to child poverty than income. It is about the denial of self-esteem, the denial of facilities which children see available for other children, and the absence of those benefits to growing up which make for genuine happiness and freedom. It is about measures that recognise what is a reasonable or adequate standard of living and whether families can afford things for their children that are considered by the majority of people to be necessities.
	Across in the Republic of Ireland, the measure of poverty combines a relative income measure with a socially perceived necessity measure. Should not the United Kingdom target more resources on children living in chronic poverty; namely, those children which research indicates are likely to suffer the worst poverty outcomes?
	Secondly, I want to address the attitude of our society to children and young people. What are the conditions which make children the most vulnerable in our communities? Much publicity attends cases of child abuse or attacks on children. The conscience of our country is awakened when the media highlight such devastating evidence of evil. We are rightly outraged and the clamour for detection and prevention is understandable. Sadly, the Churches both here and elsewhere have not been immune to this process. It is important that we in the Churches acknowledge it and seek to put our own homes and houses in order.
	But there is another side to the question—those children who go on suffering from abuse or neglect, often in their own homes. I call them the "silent ones". Child helplines have achieved remarkable results, but the question remains: how can society face up to the needs of the silent ones? Surely we need a new awareness in every part of our society that we all have a responsibility.
	It is not only for Parliament, the courts or the church agencies. It is not only for the great work of the Children's Society, the NSPCC, Barnardo's or the Mothers' Union. It is not only for the Save the Children Fund or for any other agency to find ways of eradicating such evil. Surely, it is for society to reach such a level of conscience—attitude—which says, "We will no longer tolerate in any form the abuse of little children".
	There are times when society can rise to meet a need and form collective attitudes which make certain conditions or practices unacceptable. Surely no issue demands a greater call for collective social attitude than this. We must be careful to recognise the whole picture in a debate such as today's.
	As a nation, let us take pride in the vast numbers of our young people who not only lead decent and productive lives, but also set examples of social awareness which would shame many in the older age groups. Let us pay tribute to uniformed and non-uniformed youth organisations and to those who give so much of their time and interest to lead them. That is the other side of the coin. It is too easy to overuse the word "problem" when we talk about young people in Britain. Perhaps we all share with the media the guilt of over-emphasising the "problem child" while ignoring the wonderful quality of the majority of young people who are a credit to our society.
	The responsibilities of parents must be underlined yet again in any discussion of this kind. The vast majority of parents take their relationships with young people seriously and wisely, but for those who do not, surely something more is needed. In Scotland, Section 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 sets out parental responsibilities and places a positive duty of care on parents to,
	"safeguard and promote the child's health, development and welfare".
	Parents' rights are also outlined, but only in order to enable parents to fulfil those responsibilities. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there is no such statement of parental duties. I ask the Government to consider that the Children Act 1989 and the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 be amended to include a setting-out of parental responsibilities in relation to children along the lines of Section 1 of the Children Act (Scotland) 1995.
	It is now accepted by authoritative opinion that young people most heavily exposed to family, school and community risk factors are the most likely to become involved in crime and other problem social behaviour. In this instance, the breakdown in traditional family structures has played a key role. Equally, young people who are strongly exposed to protective factors, such as stable parental relationships, good relations between parents and children or teachers which produce positive behaviour patterns, are less likely to be involved in anti-social actions.
	I hear it said, "Let the schools, let the youth clubs, let the Churches solve these problems", but I have to ask whether it is fair to expect such agencies to solve problems that society in general has been either unable or unwilling to solve itself, let alone define.
	My Motion refers to the protection of children and young people. Of one thing I am certain: Parliament will fail this nation, we will fail those who trust us, if we ever lose sight of the privilege—not only the obligation—of providing the best possible environment, the best possible encouragement and the highest possible vision for our young people.
	Do we give sufficient attention and thought to the importance of a commissioner for children, already established in Wales and expected in Northern Ireland? Do we allocate as much financial support as we should to youth work and youth organisations? In that privilege we must always provide the best protection possible for that vulnerable entity that we call our children and our young people. Sadly, compared with other voices to which we listen in this society, we do not always listen to the voices of children. Nor have we the processes in place in which adequate advocacy for children can take place.
	Issues about children are often addressed from the crisis management perspective. Do the Government pay sufficient attention to the basic principles contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, which this country ratified in 1991—principles such as the right to a cultural and physical environment which promotes a full sense of security, and the right to a social context which is affirming and supportive?
	Next month, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a Special Session on Children in New York. In 1990 the World Summit for Children produced a set of goals for the nations to work towards in the following decade. Reports on that decade will be presented next month, including one from the United Kingdom. I am delighted to see that among the British delegation will be a young person from Glenavy in County Antrim.
	Each day in my own work I see the consequences for young people of the years of violence and division in Northern Ireland—in some cases they are devastating consequences—but also I am proud to refer to the countless numbers of young people who have risen above those problems and set an example for their elders in Northern Ireland. I am proud to pay tribute today to the teaching profession, the leaders of youth organisations and the vast majority of young people in the Province.
	We await the outcome of that special assembly in New York, but let none of us in the House doubt that the protection of children in its widest sense must remain a high—if not the highest—priority for our country. Perhaps I may introduce the debate by quoting the words of Gabriela Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet:
	"Many things we need can wait,
	The child cannot . . . To him we cannot say tomorrow. His name is today".
	My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for raising this important topic and for speaking with such passion about the protection of children. I declare an interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children. Many of its members are in their places today. I am particularly pleased to welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who is also in her place.
	The group is concerned about the welfare of all children, and "welfare" includes the right to grow up without fear in the home, at school or in society at large. I am aware that the many excellent children's charities are also concerned about the protection of children and young people and are working to safeguard them against neglect, inappropriate punishment, violence and abuse.
	I wish to speak today about bullying in relation to children and young people. Children need systems to protect them from bullying and also the skills and confidence to deal with it. Bullies, as well as the bullied, need to learn to address the issue.
	"Bullying" is defined in a recent police report as,
	"hurting, persecuting or intimidating someone that you perceive to be weaker than yourself".
	It can involve teasing, taunting, excluding, stealing possessions or physical assault. Some children now report nasty messages on their mobile phones. Those who are bullied may be considered to be different in some way, be it by ethnic origin, being clever, being homosexual, having some disability or even a distinguishing feature such as red hair.
	Bullying is a vicious form of torment to children which may occur between child and adult, but also, distressingly, between children and children. I wish to explore the effects of bullying, the causes of bullying and what might be done to counter it.
	An NSPCC study found that bullying and discrimination are among the most common forms of aggression experienced by children and young people in the UK today. Forty-three per cent of children have suffered bullying at some point during childhood. A quarter of young people reported that they have suffered long-term harmful effects from being bullied.
	The organisation Young Voices produced a study, Bullying in Britain, which reported the long-term effects of bullying. It was found that boys who have been bullied have much higher levels of depression and a more negative view of themselves at the age of 23. Bullying may also be associated with later alcohol problems and domestic violence.
	The Department for Education and Employment, as it then was, reported that the emotional distress caused by bullying can prejudice school achievement, lead to lateness or truancy and, in extreme cases, end with suicide. Your Lordships may remember tragic cases of suicide among young people due to bullying. Darren Steele committed suicide aged 15, taunted by bullies who burnt him with cigarettes. Neither the school nor his parents or grandparents were aware that he was suffering.
	Young gay people have reported immense trauma from the effects of taunts and violence about their sexual orientation. Black and Asian young people report more name calling—although not necessarily physical violence—than white children. The highest victimisation rates for rape are in the 10 to 15 age group. Children with special needs are two to three times more likely to be bullied.
	Who are the bullies? The Young Voice report states that this is a complex issue. Their violence may be learned behaviour from family patterns; they may bully to get revenge or to reduce powerlessness and frustration. A bullied child may begin to bully, with attack seeming to be the best form of defence if no alternative skills are taught. A threatening social situation, such as death or divorce in the family, may make a young person take out feelings of anger by bullying others.
	Guidelines on citizenship and personal education recognise that the school culture and environment is important for the welfare and healthy development of young people; that giving pupils a voice helps them to take responsibility for what happens in school; that teaching styles such as debating, researching and group work are important in giving young people the chance to discuss issues of importance. Also important is personal and social education which may help young people with self-empowerment, assertion and negotiation skills such as the ability to say no to unwanted behaviour and to seek help.
	The Checkpoints for Young People produced by the National Children's Bureau and the Forum on Children and Violence sets out a youth charter for non-violence, including the right to feel safe, not to be physically or mentally hurt, to respect, to equality and to know that there are people there to help and to be involved in decisions.
	What can we do to combat bullying? The Gulbenkian report Children and Violence called for a whole population approach rather than targeting high risk children or developing punitive approaches. The Forum on Children and Violence has conducted research and held conferences to debate this issue. Again, the view is that children's participation in solving the problem is likely to be more effective than draconian measures. The primary school where I am a governor has a school council which discusses problems in the school such as bullying and, with staff, attempts to find solutions. The school has an anti-bullying policy so that staff, pupils and parents know that bullying will not be tolerated.
	The protection of children and young people is their right. The Children Act states that the welfare of children is "paramount". We must ensure that systems are in place which do not permit the oppression of children and violence towards them. We must also teach young people the skills to avoid or deal with violence, and to protect themselves as best they can. If we neglect these two things then we run the risk of violence in society increasing to the detriment of children and young people and communities. Does the Minister agree?

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for initiating this debate. I wish to record the sufferings of the children of Northern Ireland at the hands of the paramilitaries, which cry out for remedy but are deliberately muffled and ignored by both governments and by the political representatives of the men of violence in the name of the famous peace process, and because there is apparently an "acceptable level of violence".
	A report to the Northern Ireland Committee in the other place over a year ago from a reputable academic source said unequivocally that paramilitary child abuse had actually increased in the past few years since the Belfast agreement, and that the Provisional IRA has targeted children to a greater extent even than the loyalists. The youngest victim of a punishment beating seen by the surgeons in the Royal Victoria Hospital was just 14. The beatings are usually carried out with an iron bar, breaking both legs and arms, or with a nail-studded plank. There were many other such victims very little older. One 15-year old with special needs was hit across the face with an iron bar and beaten in his home for 20 minutes about the head and body, fracturing his jaw. His mother could do nothing.
	I do not propose to give statistics, though they tell a grim story of extensive, brutal and persistent violence against children and the young, but to quote examples given by the Maranatha Community, a highly respected charity which has worked in Northern Ireland and among exiles in the United Kingdom for more than 30 years, and is in touch on behalf of victims with both loyalist and republican paramilitaries. It knows all about the terrible and traumatic long-term effects of paramilitary violence on the people and especially the republican practice of exiling whole families overnight, requiring them to leave their homes for the mainland at 12 hours' notice and never to return on pain of death. If they return they are shot.
	Two children, whose father was ordered out of the country during the day, returned from school to find that he had fled. They asked urgently, "Are they going to kill my Daddy?" They had nightmares and wet the bed. They saw the anguish of their mother and could not understand why they could not speak to their father who telephoned them. Two children fled to England with their parents at a few hours' notice. The father was under threat of death. They were all terrified; in a strange country and initially without a home. They developed signs of extreme insecurity and anguish. They could not settle at their new school. They fretted for their grandparents and believed that they would never see them again. They constantly wet their beds and needed sedatives.
	Last year, a paramiltiary gang ordered a 15-year old boy out of the country, saying that he would be shot dead if he returned. He ended up homeless on the streets of an English city with no friends, no help and no money. His parents were told that he would not survive if he returned and that they, too, would suffer. A couple were ordered out of Northern Ireland last year and one of their sons aged nine was dragged out of bed to witness his parents being threatened. They had to leave their children with grandparents and slept in their car for four nights ending up in great distress in an English city. I should tell the House that there are no arrangements, other than those devised by the Maranatha Community, to take care of these families at this traumatic moment in their lives. Refugees are cared for, but for these people, our own citizens, there is no provision in their hour of need. The children of that family were, and still are, very emotionally disturbed and disorientated.
	A three-year old girl saw her father beaten with a baseball bat studded with nine-inch nails. She was taken into hiding with him as they fled to England. She was extremely traumatised. The paramilitary gang was well aware of this and expressed no remorse.
	Children are regularly required to witness brutality and murder. A father was shot dead in his own home, in front of children, while holding his baby. Children are also made to join junior paramilitary organisations or be ostracised and bullied. They are told that their parents or siblings will be hurt if they do not work with the paramilitaries.
	In the United Kingdom today children are daily seeing their parents and neighbours physically attacked, often in their own homes, by paramilitaries who are given the status of heroes. Children are being taught by them how to make and throw petrol bombs and other missiles, which can blind, maim and even kill. Children and young people are being trained in the use of firearms, baseball bats and lumps of concrete for so-called punishment beatings. They have themselves been victims of such beatings. They are brought up in an atmosphere of endemic fear and danger and, not surprisingly, for many years they suffer extreme mental and emotional disorder. They become embittered and hardened and often find it extremely difficult to make relationships later in life.
	These children are offered violent, cruel men as role models. They regularly see houses burned by mobs of both persuasions and, by no means least, they are taught distorted versions both of history and of what is happening today. I freely concede what the noble and right reverend Lord said that teachers do their very best, but they are up against a most difficult situation. These children are taught to mistrust and hate those of a different tradition. It must be nearly impossible for even the most loving parent to counter this daily diet of violence and hate. This is happening to children in our country today. It is a matter of national shame. Instead of conducting a long and useless campaign to get the IRA to give up old weapons, which they have quietly replaced with new, both governments should, I suggest, be demanding and forcing the end of paramilitary violence, which is designed to flout the rule of law and demonstrate that they, and not the government, are in charge.
	Sinn Fein/IRA is even demanding now that paramilitaries and ex-prisoners should be senior officers in the police, speaking for the community. What hope have they then? They have demonstrated that they run the place. Their power is so complete that no one dares to go to the real police and the police themselves can do little to help because they are turned away by the victim who begs them not to go further. So long as nothing is done, children suffer and will grow up as flawed and traumatised human beings.
	I deeply regret that in so vital an issue we should have been constrained to such a short debate. I bow to the noble Baroness who also made an extremely important point: we should not have so little time. I believe that the Government are in breach of the human rights legislation and the human rights of these children. I want to see what real powers the commissioner for children will have. I am afraid that I do not have much faith, but I intended today at least to ensure that something is known of what is happening on the streets of Northern Ireland.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for introducing a most important debate, the first, I suspect, of many similar debates in the coming months. I wish to focus on one particular aspect, the child protection system.
	The horrifying torture of Victoria Climbié at the hands of her demented aunt has put child abuse back on the political agenda. It has led to a profusion of media articles searching for the answer to one question. How, almost 30 years after the death of Maria Caldwell, can children still be subject to horrifying abuse and their suffering to go unnoticed until they die?
	Away from the headlines and the outrage, a number of social care professionals and researchers have been quietly analysing the current system of child protection. The inquiry headed by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, will, I am sure, bring forward valuable proposals for change. Similarly, the investigation by my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew into the safety of children in the NHS in Wales has provided a comprehensive analysis of the strengths and failings of existing childcare practice in that country. In October 2001 the Department of Health produced its own evaluation of children's services from a study carried out by Diana Robbins. In December 2001 the Thomas Coram Foundation published its research into variations in local childcare practices. I want to pick up some of the key themes which have emerged.
	The first point which stands out clearly is that the current system of child protection has been developed in response to a series of high profile scandals. Cases of maltreatment of individual children or larger scale abuse in residential settings such as North Wales and Merseyside have led to new recommendations. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, it is crisis management. Although the policies and guidelines have been proposed and adopted as improvements in practice, they have all been reactions to failure. Child protection practice is based on child abuse and is frequently developed outwith the rest of the childcare system. Almost inevitably, the child protection system kicks in only after the incidence of serious abuse. Area child protection committees are reactive, underfunded and focused on cases which go wrong. Little of the work undertaken is preventive and promotion of good practice is rarely a priority. After 30 years it is time to develop a system based on factors of child development rather than child abuse. In that way, the absence of child development indicators could be used as an early warning and avoidance system.
	That leads me to my next theme: the training of staff. A post-qualifying childcare award has been available for social workers for the past three years. It is a one-year part-time course incorporating much of the content of Quality Protects. However, it has not yet been evaluated nationally, nor is it fully available nationwide. Few social services departments have resource libraries to which staff can refer. That is not good when training budgets have been cut. All the evidence from every inquiry shows that provision of good quality training is vital if staff are to be aware of child protection issues, recognise symptoms of abuse and know what to do when it presents.
	The report of my noble friend Lord Carlile demonstrates that there is widespread ignorance of child protection on the part of senior managers and clinicians in the NHS. Many GP practices have no child protection policy; and A&E departments are hostile environments for children.
	Social workers are not the only staff with training needs. Studies of area child protection committees have shown that people from other professions such as teachers and police have a vital role to play in the detection and resolution of child abuse. Yet they are rarely allowed to attend training. In a recent report, the ADSS made the good suggestion that other professionals such as housing staff and staff of the National Asylum Support Service and the Immigration Service need child protection training if vulnerable children are not to slip through the net. What do the Government propose to do about that?
	Quality and consistency of staff are the key issue. Yet evidence from the social services recruitment and healthcare workforce group in 2001 cited an average vacancy rate of 20 per cent in social services departments and an average 22 per cent turnover rate. In some areas of the country, in services such as children and families services the rates are much higher. When there is no consistency of staff professionals to talk to, the system begins to break down and children are failed.
	All the evidence accumulated during the past 30 years supports the view that multi-disciplinary teams are the best way to organise child protection services. Child abuse is detected by many people in different work settings. However, at the heart of that multi-disciplinary system is a major flaw. A key finding of my noble friend's report is that information is not shared. There is widespread misunderstanding of the Caldicott principles and the use of different databases blocks the flow of information which is necessary for the protection of children. It is now clearly evident that all medical staff need access to child protection registers and social workers need access to medical histories. At the same time there need to be rigorous protocols governing the use of that information; and there needs to be an effective system of advocacy for the children and protection for adults and professionals who are wrongly accused. What will the Government do in the light of my noble friend's report and its implementation in Wales?
	The Climbié inquiry made clear the need for a thorough overhaul of the practice of private fostering and adoption. When the adoption and fostering Bill emerges from another place I hope that that will be done and that there will be a requirement for training in parenting skills in private fostering and adoption.
	I wish to mention one loophole. The registration of small private children's homes was to have been concluded by February 2002. Although the majority have been registered, some have not. What will be done to follow up on those which have not registered?
	Finally, uniquely of all the people who work with children, nannies are not regulated. What plans do the Government have to bring nannies within the auspices of the current regulatory framework such as Ofsted?
	I hope that the Government's reactions to the Laming inquiry will not be another reorganisation. I urge them instead to consider all the research and good practice which is around but which has not been disseminated and to spend resources to ensure that professionals use that information to protect children.

The Lord Bishop of Bradford: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for raising such important issues and for his most helpful speech.
	I should like to reflect on two matters he raised from the point of view of a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment such as the city and district of Bradford. He said that the nurturing of children and young people is the responsibility of us all. He also said that we must listen to their voices. That is right and very wise, if I may say so. The responsibility of us all points to the examples which adults set. Perhaps I may take as an example young Muslims in Bradford. Their parents may well have come from Kashmir or Mirpur. They bring with them a culture which is very different from any form of culture in this country; and a faith which is tied up intimately with culture. Part of their problem is to say, "Here I am in this western culture. Who am I? What is faith and what is culture? How do I become a good Muslim in the western world where I am surrounded by influences that one never even hears about in Kashmir".
	We need to be sensitive to that problem and supportive of the young people in that position. If they are brought up in homes where parents adopt an isolationist form of life, having no contact with anyone except people like themselves, how on earth will they ever have the self-confidence to make relationships with other young people form other cultures? They will find that enormously difficult. If they are in the same area as young white children whose parents adopt a superior, dismissive, even aggressive attitude to ethnic minorities, the young white children will never be in a position to relate to young children of different backgrounds.
	The responsibility on parents and adults is enormous. We need to emphasise that. We need to take it on board because we have that overriding influence over whether the children turn out to be isolationist or are capable of living happily and in a fulfilling manner in this western environment. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said that we need to listen to their voices. That is absolutely true.
	In areas such as that in which I live the stereotype of hordes of youngsters going around the streets bent on violence and nothing else is a most appalling caricature and far from the truth if one takes the trouble to listen to ordinary young Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. If you come in with the media after violence has taken place and you talk to the young people who have been hurling bricks and petrol bombs, you will receive the response that you are perhaps looking for, and it will make the headlines. Those are a tiny minority. They are totally unrepresentative of the young people in an area such as mine. If you sit down with the sensible, sane young people, you will hear wise words and a commitment to a future full of respect, toleration and working together.
	In a world which delights in disaster, perhaps I may flag up the good side. A week or so ago, I was invited to be present at what is called the shadow SACRE, the SACRE which looks after religious education in the Interfaith Education Centre in Bradford, where people have produced a syllabus approved by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists and Christians. They have got together a group of youngsters who are mainly in the sixth form: Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians. They meet together regularly, encouraged by responsible adults, and talk about what it means to have a religious faith in Bradford, and how they can use their faith for the good of Bradford. Those people are far more typical of the young people in the area than those who hurl bricks at the police and throw petrol bombs.
	I echo the plea of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, that we should listen to the youngsters. Many come from cultures where the elderly do not listen to the youth, where the elders are held to be the source of all wisdom and the youth are expected to obey. Would that it were true. The revolution for which the noble and right reverend Lord has asked—namely, that older people listen to the youngsters—is urgently needed.
	We should seek to create a secure environment in which youngsters can develop relationships. In a city such as Bradford, the scapegoat is the faith school. I can assure your Lordships that, whomsoever you talk to in Bradford, whether or not the person has a faith, will tell you that the faith schools have nothing to do with the matter. It is a question of where people live. They live in enclaves with like people and they attend the local school. The result is one-faith, one-culture, one-race schools.
	How do we address that problem? We cannot go in for busing. We must create space, and encourage schools to help youngsters to get together and meet each other. I pray that, when schools are assessed and when Ofsted inspections take place, one day someone will consider a sense of citizenship and the provision of space to get to know other people as the marks of a good school, and not just its A-level results.
	I plead and urge that we show sensitivity to the youngsters who are being persuaded by some political parties to adopt the attitude: "We should like you to go away, please, because you are a problem". We live in an environment where parents say, "We want to live in our own little back yard and have nothing to do with them". I pray that we can be sensitive to the problems that these young people have in growing up, and that as adults we accept our responsibility for setting an example which they can follow and from which they will benefit.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, on securing this most important of debates. As I listened to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford, I empathised with his thoughts about Bradford. What he was saying about that city could well be mirrored in my city of Belfast. If indeed we get behind the headlines relating to both cities, there is hope.
	The advent of devolution across the United Kingdom has not diminished the need to take steps to protect children throughout our nation. Indeed, I believe that the new administrative arrangements should be regarded as an opportunity to develop even greater co-operation across each of the jurisdictions—including on the issue of child protection. In that, the role of Parliament will be of prime importance.
	I want briefly to highlight the necessity of a co-ordinated strategy by referring to a small number of issues that affect children across the United Kingdom. The introduction of the Protection of Children Act 1999 and the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau in England and Wales were important steps in preventing unsuitable people from working with children. In the implementation of the legislation, however, it would appear that the Home Office did not fully consider arrangements in the remaining jurisdictions and, in particular, the need for an implementation plan to allow for transition between the old and the new administrative arrangements.
	The Northern Ireland Assembly will soon debate the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults Bill, and the Scottish Executive is due to bring forward legislation to establish a consultancy index similar to the Protection of Children Act list and the Pre-Employment Consultancy Service in Northern Ireland. What we are left with at the moment, however, are inconsistent standards of vetting across the United Kingdom which are dependent on where an applicant lives or has worked.
	For example, the Criminal Records Bureau in England is not checking the Pre-Employment Consultancy Service Register or the Department of Education list in Northern Ireland. Also, Disclosure Scotland—which was set up to carry out police checks in that part of the United Kingdom—does not assess the Pre-Employment Consultancy Service Register. Thus, someone from Scotland working with children in Northern Ireland will not be vetted to the same standards as someone who comes from the Province of Ulster. We clearly need vetting to be taken forward on a three-jurisdictional basis and not a piecemeal approach to reform of the system.
	The United Kingdom has an unenviable record on child deaths as a result of child abuse. But it is too simple to say that child deaths across the United Kingdom can be reduced solely from London, when clearly many aspects of the complex reasons for children dying at the hands of abusers lie with devolved parliaments, both in Northern Ireland and in Scotland. There is a complex relationship between this issue, Parliament and devolution.
	Much of the funding for children's services comes from direct taxation and there are important inter-relationships with the coroners' process, the police and the Northern Ireland Office. If the Government wish to reduce child deaths as a result of abuse in the United Kingdom, that must be on the back of a co-ordinated strategy that involves devolved government departments in Northern Ireland alongside central government departments in London.
	The issue of sex offenders is very serious in this country and in the European Union as a whole. The Sex Offenders Act 1997 applies across the United Kingdom, but Northern Ireland is the only part of our nation that has a land frontier with another EU state. The implementation of the Irish Sex Offenders Act is to be welcomed; but legislation that is slightly different and which introduces loopholes will undoubtedly be exploited by those who seek to harm children. For example, there will be no registration requirement for sex offenders who move from the Republic of Ireland across the Border into Northern Ireland. The Government need to consider that point when bringing forward much-needed amendments to the United Kingdom legislation.
	The Treasury needs to recognise the issue of funding in relation to the block grant to Northern Ireland. However, it must be acknowledged that we have a major problem in Northern Ireland with regard to investment in children's services. Such services historically receive much lower levels of funding than those in England and Wales.
	Naturally, there are numerous competing demands on finance in Northern Ireland, many of them due to the need to invest in our infrastructure. However, it is a sad fact that it is often the children's services that lose out as a result of this. Children in Belfast have the same right to protection from abuse as those in Brighton or Blairgowrie. The Government in London have identical responsibilities to all of them. The Chancellor has outlined bold targets to reduce child poverty in the United Kingdom. However, he has not outlined how he intends to deliver those in Northern Ireland. The sooner he does so, the better it will be for the children of the Province.
	Child protection systems cannot operate in isolation within the United Kingdom. The onset of devolution has made necessary better and more imaginative co-operation across each of our jurisdictions. We need an imaginative debate and leadership in establishing systems and processes that cross our internal boundaries. Only when we make progress on that will we be able to look forward to a better standard of protection for all our children living in these islands.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I was delighted when I read that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, had tabled this Motion for debate today. Nobody could be more compassionate in his approach to this sensitive subject. His long and distinguished record of pastoral care and his understanding of the misery and horror of troubled times in Northern Ireland have given him a depth of experience. Over the years, many people of different faiths and none have had good reason to be grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord.
	In most cases, children are protected through the care of loving parents, where children grow up in an atmosphere that is happy, natural and devoid of any hatred and cruelty. Sadly, life for some children is not like that. What goes on behind closed doors is hidden and can be hideous. Young children may not realise that this sort of behaviour is not the norm, and so do not complain. It is therefore essential that there are people who take careful note of anything unusual and share that information with colleagues. Some would say that that would lead to a snooper's charter. I refute that charge and believe it is our duty to report if we fear that a child is at risk.
	I appreciate that cruelty exists in many forms, both mental and physical. It also varies in its power and intensity. Sometimes unkindness and thoughtlessness may be seen as cruelty. I know from my experience as a magistrate that some children are subjected to incidents so horrific that they are almost too appalling to contemplate. In a short debate of this kind, it is not possible to cover the whole range, so I shall speak about just two examples of physical cruelty.
	Because of my strong beliefs, I have had a long-standing connection with the NSPCC. I was drawn to the society because of its work on behalf of children, covering all types of minor and major acts of callousness. I well remember one initiative resulting from the building of high-rise tower blocks. It was decided to try and help mothers who were struggling to raise children in flats up to 20 or more floors above ground. The society ran a centre for those mothers who had children of different ages and no garden outside the kitchen door for them to play in and who, as a consequence kept them indoors all day. I shall never forget the sight of those children as they careered round and round, enjoying the sheer thrill of the freedom of movement denied in a small flat. Until that time, I, like many others, had not realised the evil effect of high-rise flats on those families with small children condemned to live in them. The main thrust was to get people out of slum city areas into decent accommodation. I am sure that no one then understood the result that such housing conditions would have, but today, in hindsight, I consider that it was a modest form of cruelty to keep children caged up like that for hours on end.
	I shall highlight horrendous acts of brutality on little children, which come before the courts with what appears to be increasing regularity. One such case that has haunted me is that of Lauren Wright. My right honourable friend Mrs Gillian Shephard and her Norfolk parliamentary colleagues have been deeply involved in highlighting the case. I pay tribute to their determination to try to get procedures changed. They have insisted that lessons be learnt. As a result, we are tabling amendments to the Education Bill presently before your Lordships' House.
	The tragic story of six year-old Lauren Wright is too ghastly to be believed. She went to live with her father and stepmother after their marriage and underwent what can only be called torture. She attended her local school, where her stepmother was a dinner lady. It was a two-teacher school, so she must have been observed on a regular basis. During that time she often appeared with bruises, which were explained away, but surely someone should have noticed in addition that she was losing weight and should have wondered why. Sixteen months later, when she died, she had lost four stone and weighed only two stone—a six year-old who weighed only 28 pounds. Her father and stepmother were imprisoned after conviction. This poor child was let down not only by the system, but by society—all of us.
	Of course I know that where evil exists, one cannot guarantee that it will never happen again, but surely a structure could be put in place to minimise such terrible events. Teachers and social workers must play a major part in any new arrangements and there must be a clear line of responsibility. The law at present states that in each school there must be a designated teacher with specific responsibilities. That policy must be strengthened. It is unbelievable that, in spite of the frequency of terrible tragedies, we have not made greater effort to change and reinforce our procedures. I sometimes wonder whether those who should be involved in such matters are too occupied with political correctness and watching their backs and as a consequence take their eye off the ball. We must not let go this chance to give force to the statutory powers. If we do, I consider that we should have it on our consciences and be equally guilty with all those who failed little Lauren Wright.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, on 17th October last year, I spoke in the debate initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on false accusations of abuse. I thank my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames for bringing this question to your Lordships' attention this evening, because it enables me to say a little more on that subject.
	I am the first to acknowledge that child protection social workers have an extremely difficult job and most of them deserve our respect and admiration. Unfortunately, the rotten apple spoils the barrel. When child protection social workers justifiably intervene and investigate a child's situation, yet fail to recognise abuse and fail to protect the child, the public demand for an investigation and for the prevention of a recurrence is undivided. Hidden from the public eye are an alarming number of families where child protection officers have set in motion child protection procedures without justification. These cases invariably involve sick children and a difference of medical opinion. Parents are accused of abusing their children. Family confidentiality and their right to privacy and family life under the Human Rights Act are unjustly breached. Social workers abuse their Children Act powers. When professionals whose role is to promote the health and welfare of children and to prevent abuse make gross errors of judgment, the damage they cause to innocent families is doubly abusive. The same errors of judgment, poor quality of work and failure to adhere to guidance and the law can lead to failure to prevent abuse and to false accusations of abuse.
	The Children Act lacks the appropriate checks and balances to ensure accountability. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, made very clear, where responsibility is left almost entirely to caseworkers, the quality, integrity, training and supervision of child protection social workers is paramount.
	For parents suspected of child abuse there is no presumption of innocence; they are thrust into a nightmare scenario. Feeling that they are judged guilty from the outset, they are effectively denied any opportunity to prove their innocence. Professionals meet and arrive at decisions without the family knowing. At the point where Section 47 of the Children Act is invoked and the parents are informed, they are not only accused of abuse, they are effectively considered guilty of abuse.
	I have had conversations and correspondence with parents that demonstrate that the investigative process, the purpose of which is to establish the facts behind a child's situation, has often been abused. Evidence to support a pre-determined decision is fabricated; some social workers' reports manipulate and distort what is said in interviews; and the opinion of a child's GP or consultant is misrepresented or excluded when it does not accord with the view of the social worker or the designated doctor. Important facts and evidence are omitted from key reports. Uninformed opinion is presented as fact and remains on the record even if challenged.
	Legal assistance for the parents seems to be locked into a closed circuit. Social services advise the parent of the names of solicitors who practise in the child protection field. It is apparent that some solicitors are dependent upon social services for work and therefore will not want to rock the boat. Parents are often told, against their better judgment, to go along with social services. If the case gets to court, the judge can be swamped with paper. I know from my experience as a member of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal what it is like to be swamped with paper. Much of it is irrelevant, and the judge must rely upon flawed evidence to reach his conclusions. Parents whose children are taken into care or made wards of court are faced with draconian gagging orders. To innocent parents, the lack of natural justice in the way the case is constructed against them is both sinister and terrifying.
	Genuinely sick children are refused medical attention. The whole family is disturbed, and mothers are known to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Children lose all trust in childcare professionals, and a child's education is disrupted. The whole family may not seek medical attention out of fear of being further misunderstood or misrepresented. Social services help for other family members may be refused for fear that they may be coerced into making further false accusations. Families are given the cold shoulder in their communities and are excluded from social groups. Mothers involved in children's activities, even in some church groups, are suddenly no longer needed. The horror is endless.
	When social services closes the file on innocent parents, even when there is an acknowledgement that a mistake has been made, there is no apology and the false "diagnosis" remains on the file. "You are what you are accused of", one innocent mother was told when she asked why the diagnosis remained on the file. That this can happen and there is nothing that effectively can be done about it was confirmed to me in a Written Answer in yesterday's Hansard.
	We must bear in mind that these records are open to anyone in the childcare field who has been asked to employ a member of this family. I ask the Minister how—when there is a culture of, "You are what you are accused of"—innocent parents and their sick children can obtain justice? How can innocent parents clear their names? Unfortunately, time does not allow me to draw attention to many more iniquities. I sincerely believe that if Ministers were to listen to some of the aggrieved parents, rather than to hide behind the customary, "We cannot look at individual cases", they would be as horrified as I am and would want to do something about the problem.
	I have an example of a young man who, at the age of 15, had had ME for about two years. His case had been drawn to the attention of the local community paediatrician and the child psychiatrist. Those two people, with the social workers, decided that the child should be admitted to a psychiatric hospital and that his parents were responsible for causing his problems. Eventually, he was made a ward of court, with a gagging order in which the mother and father were allowed to speak only to their solicitor and their MP. The father was Dutch, and he took his child to Holland, to the grandparents. Interpol was called out and they were brought back to this country.
	I am sorry, but my time is up and I must stop.

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, I should have been very happy to forgo a minute of my time to enable the noble Countess, Lady Mar, to tell us the end of the story.
	I welcome this opportunity offered by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, to discuss these vital issues. I should also like to say how much, as a native of Bradford, I agree with the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford. I shall address the specific issue of the protection of children and young people in relation to new technology, the Internet and the use of mobile telephones.
	Today we have learned about the biggest ever operation against Internet paedophiles in the UK. The operation was carried out by more than 34 police forces; 75 addresses were raided simultaneously; and large quantities of computer equipment were seized. We know from the work on the "Wonderland" case, several years ago, that those police officers will now find not hundreds or thousands, but hundreds of thousands, of images of the most horrific abuse of youngsters, children and even babies. We shall learn more about the case as it unfolds in the newspapers tomorrow, but I should like to draw noble Lords' attention to two specific points.
	First, we need to recognise and pay tribute to the role played by British police not only on the national stage but internationally in dealing with this problem. I have had the privilege of meeting and talking to some of the police officers leading that work. The National Crime Squad, Manchester police and their colleagues are totally committed to catching those people and stopping their vile trade. They deserve not only our thanks and support but access to the government resources they need to pursue and stop the trade.
	Secondly, among those arrested today were doctors, teachers and people working in the caring professions—professions which bring people into contact with children. That underlines the importance of ensuring that children and everyone else realises that paedophiles are very often not "dirty old men in raincoats". The grim truth is that the police are going after paedophiles trading images in chatrooms who they believe are also involved in ongoing abuse against their own children and other children in their neighbourhoods. That leaves us with a dilemma.
	There is no doubt that advances in new technology have produced great gains for children, not only by giving them unparalleled access to educational and cultural resources and by enabling new and imaginative games, but also by facilitating a huge boom in interactive and communications technologies that enable youngsters to maintain long, complicated and occasionally interesting and useful, I am sure, conversations with each other. If anyone ever doubted human beings' basic instinct to communicate with each other and to live in extended groups, they need only look at the uses to which children put many of the new technologies without any prompting at all. Indeed, many researchers say that if we want to know how adults will use new technology tomorrow, we should look at how children are using it today.
	The fact is that 75 per cent of the United Kingdom's seven to 16 year-olds now have Internet access. However, only a fool would attempt to argue that every technological advance has been an unqualified success. The motorcar has been a great liberator, but it has also eaten into our natural resources and made living in cities unhealthy. We are only now beginning to devise policies and technologies to deal with its destructive tendencies. It is already evident that we shall have to do something similar to deal with the unintended consequences of the Internet, aspects of mobile telephone use and perhaps other interactive communication devices as well.
	The Internet is a product of the Cold War—a revolutionary technology developed in the essentially closed, small and trusting environment of academia. The same rules which governed its use in that environment simply do not work when the same system is exported to the ruder, rougher climes of the mass market. I have no complaint about the Internet broadening its reach; on the contrary, I welcome it. All I am saying is that in the long run I cannot see civilised society standing by and allowing it to become a major conduit for criminal and other grossly undesirable conduct, particularly when so much of it seems directly to threaten children; indeed, this Government are not.
	Happily, most of Britain's larger Internet companies are doing tremendous work helping to make the Internet a safer place for our children. There is still a long way to go, and probably a time will never come when we can say with absolute certainty that the Internet is 100 per cent safe for children 100 per cent of the time, but then nothing in life is ever 100 per cent of anything 100 per cent of the time—and the Internet will not be any different. But it is important to recognise that the issue of safety must stay high on the agenda. Apart from anything else, as a result of government policy the whole education system is being restructured around the Internet. So sooner rather than later 100 per cent of our children will have Internet access.
	Our largest ISPs are playing a full part in the Home Office's Internet Task Force—a task force that has become an important focal point for activity in this area. The Government, and in particular Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes, are to be congratulated on the work they are doing. I am kept fully informed of the work of the task force partly because my husband serves on it. Like me he has a close association with the children's charity NCH which recently commissioned pioneering research into children's use of mobile phones. Over 50 per cent of children have access to mobile phones. Children are being bullied through the use of text messaging on their mobile phones. With bullying by text messages children's phones are becoming places where vile and horrible messages can be received. So not only is bullying taking place by e-mail and sometimes in chatrooms, but also by mobile phone.
	The national survey that NCH carried out found that one in four children had experienced or were experiencing bullying by electronic media. Text messaging over the mobile phone was the largest culprit. The survey also showed that children suffer that bullying in silence. The fact that someone is being bullied in the virtual world is no reason to ignore it in the real one or, indeed, in school in particular. I call on the mobile phone companies to look again at how they handle complaints of bullying by text messaging. They have it within their power to help to deal with this problem and I ask them to address it.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, we have heard today that child protection is a complex interrelationship between parental care, listening to children, community programmes and good local authority child protection procedures. It is always easy to look at how some of these have gone wrong when a child is harmed or tragically dies, but to hold the complex package together requires the skills of well trained workers, multi-disciplinary working and partnerships between the voluntary and statutory agencies. No one group can do that task alone. I should like to take this opportunity to highlight the work of a few of the agencies in the field and to raise one or two questions in advance of the discussions we shall have when the Adoption and Children Bill comes to your Lordships' House later in the Session when we shall again have opportunities to raise some of these issues.
	In thanking the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for initiating the debate I agree with him that this matter is a collective social responsibility. In the report, Child Protection, Everybody's Business, ChildLine attempted to respond to the many questions put to its workers by those who came across child abuse and felt totally unable to deal with it. This included relatives, friends, teachers, neighbours and parents themselves. In discussion with groups of social work staff and community groups it was apparent that faced with even the most blatant abuse some very well meaning and trained people found it difficult to decide what to do.
	The phenomenon is not always easy to see and as the consequences of telling are so serious people think twice about raising issues, during which time children can be seriously damaged. Physical signs may not trigger appropriate responses, as we saw in the case of Victoria Climbie, and sexual abuse is even more difficult to diagnose. I speak as someone who has been involved in three child abuse inquiries and knows of the pain that is caused when things go wrong. That is why the Stop it Now campaign which I chair is developing a network of local projects across the UK. As well as raising awareness of sexual abuse, the campaign aims to target key groups. These will include adults who have abused, or are thinking of abusing, a child—because they do seek help—family and friends of abusers and parents of children and young people who sexually abuse other children—a large category which we often ignore.
	Stop it Now is a multi-disciplinary partnership that helps adults to take responsibility for protecting children and gives them some help and understanding in how to do it. We are grateful for the support of the Home Office and the Department of Health. We are grateful not only for their financial support but also for their active interest in what we are doing.
	The programme will raise awareness, but even so child sexual abuse remains a secret crime and many children find it hard to describe what they are enduring. Every year ChildLine talks to over 10,000 children calling about sexual abuse in addition to the 14,000 who call about physical abuse. ChildLine does not manage to answer all the calls so there are many more cases. ChildLine has demonstrated that listening to children is vitally important in all aspects of child protection but it is difficult to do well. We could do more to help children talk about their experiences and what they want for the future by ensuring that when the picture of what is happening to them is unclear they receive independent representation from schemes such as the national young people's advocacy scheme. One example of that is in the difficult area of contact orders.
	On 13th March the Government issued a briefing to MPs in response to concern in the other place about the risk of abuse to children in contact arrangements. In addition to the welcome range of work the Government are planning in this area, I hope that we will be able to consider amendments that would substantially resolve some of the outstanding difficulties to specific concerns in relation to Schedule 1 offenders and which would also provide a framework for an effective interface between private and public proceedings.
	The point has been made that there are practical difficulties in treating all Schedule 1 offenders as a potential risk to children, although my long experience tells me that we should err on the side of caution and certainly listen to the children. I know the end of the story mentioned by the noble Countess, Lady Mar. As a professional I take a different view of that issue. These issues are extraordinarily complex. While there are difficulties in screening all applicants for contact—I accept that it may be highly offensive to most parents who have the interests of their children at heart—there is a problem in relation to those children the court considers to be at risk. The present system does not either allow the court to identify these children or provide objective and independent evidence on their behalf.
	Those tasked with the greatest burdens in these complex decisions are social workers. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the thousands of childcare workers working in residential care situations, supporting families and supervising children. They work in difficult circumstances. Unless we cherish them and give them the support they need, it will become virtually impossible to find people of calibre to take on these difficult tasks. We have heard much this afternoon about education. I hope that when the social services budgets are looked at, social worker training will be high on the agenda. I make a plea for the future. If they are to develop the kind of expertise that the work of child protection demands, I, like the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, ask that we should please stop reorganising them and give them the opportunity to consolidate their skills and experience, to develop good relationships, to understand research and to work with colleagues in other professions. Constant change at the rate that has been experienced over the past two decades distracts attention from the development of sound child protection practice and places our vulnerable children at even greater risk.
	It is clear that the present Government have done much to improve services for children but sound child protection remains elusive. That is probably because there is a belief that it is all down to common sense and that anyone can get these decisions right when the truth is that they require training, experience, objectivity and a capacity to work with others. Child protection is a highly complex professional skill and we forget that to the peril of the lives of the many vulnerable children who depend on government to get the policy decisions right so that the practitioners have the space and ability to protect children.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for initiating this important debate. We have had an excellent debate. Through it there has been a common thread—that of the need to listen to children. That was eloquently expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, and others.
	We have heard significant contributions about many aspects of the protection of children. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, made an eloquent plea for the elimination of child poverty and for society to listen to the silent ones. The Government are making inroads into child poverty but we on these Benches urge them to make every effort to increase the uptake of the complex raft of benefits and tax credits. Too many families do not receive the cash to which they are entitled.
	I was very moved by the account given by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, of the children of Northern Ireland. She described a horrifying—and little publicised—side of the effects of the troubles. I wholeheartedly endorse the perceptive comments of my noble friend Lady Barker on the child protection system.
	However, I want to focus on a subject that has not been covered—the physical punishment of children and the need for a legal ban. In December last year, the Government announced:
	"We do not believe that any further change to the law at this time would command widespread public support or that it would be capable of consistent enforcement. However, we will keep the reasonable chastisement defence under review".
	I wish to put the case for that review and to ask for a change of heart, based on the evidence.
	Why do we need a change in the law? We need it in order to give children the same protection under the law on assault as adults. It is as simple as that. We need it to encourage those who are at risk of harming children to seek advice and support to prevent their doing so. We need it to provide a clear legal framework in which we can promote positive relationships between children and their parents and other carers, including non-violent and effective discipline. And we need it to enable those working in child protection to deliver clear messages, supported by clear legislation.
	As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, mentioned, in 1991 the UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 19 of the convention protects children from all forms of physical violence and Article 37 protects them from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Sadly, physical violence against children is all too common in our society. Researchers have found that 80 per cent of UK parents have smacked or hit their children at some time and that 25 per cent hit them weekly or more often.
	We need to ask two questions. Do parents have a right to hit their children? And is physical punishment an effective way of instilling discipline? My answer to the first of those questions is, "No, they do not". We do not own our children. They are not our property to do with as we wish. If we accept that we do not have a right to indulge in physical violence against other adults, how much less of a right do we have to inflict it on younger, smaller and more vulnerable individuals, especially those who look to us for love and protection and for an example of how to live? Indeed, one might say that we have a duty not to treat children in that way, especially in view of the mass of evidence that there is in answer to my second question, which is: does it work? The answer to that is a resounding, "No, it does not". In fact, there is much evidence showing that it has the opposite of the intended effect.
	Research on short and long-term effects of physical punishment has found that although it may secure children's immediate compliance, it is also associated with negative behaviour, including childhood aggression and lower levels of understanding why certain actions are unacceptable. A report published by the NSPCC, with which I have a non-pecuniary association, showed a "very clear association" between physical punishment at 11 years of age and delinquency, with more than one-quarter of children who are smacked or beaten once a week being rated as troublesome at the age of 16. There is much anecdotal evidence to show that violence begets violence—including bullying, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—and that physically abused children become physically abusing parents.
	Clearly, not all smacking leads to child abuse. However, there is evidence that the behaviour can escalate, which is why it needs to be stopped early. Researchers found that many people who had hit their babies were hitting their four year-olds weekly and severely. By the age of seven almost one-quarter of those children were being hit with implements. That sort of behaviour is getting very close to what most people would regard as child abuse and it demonstrates a lack of self-control on the part of the parents, which easily leads beyond the line that most people would draw.
	The Government have claimed that there is no public support for a change in the law. An opinion poll carried out by MORI this year contradicts that view. It shows an overwhelming consensus that physical punishment is wrong in certain circumstances. The questions were based on the current proposals going through the Scottish Parliament as part of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, introduced by the Liberal Democrat Justice Minister, Jim Wallace. Ninety-seven per cent of those questioned said that parents should not be allowed to punish physically babies up to 18 months; 78 per cent said that parents should not be allowed to punish physically toddlers under three; 96 per cent said that parents should not be allowed to use implements to punish children; and 98 per cent said that parents should not be allowed to hit children around the head.
	There is growing support for a ban on all physical punishment. Fifty-eight per cent were in favour of legal reform provided that parents were not to be prosecuted for so-called "trivial" smacks. I emphasise that that survey was based on a statistically significant random sample of the population, using best-practice survey techniques and not the self-selecting group who responded to the Government's 2001 consultations or the recent Scottish Daily Record reader survey. So it can be relied on as being an accurate reflection of public opinion.
	Those who oppose a ban on hitting children claim that caring parents would be criminalised for a trivial smack in the heat of the moment. In order to see if that would really be so, it is worth looking at the experience of other countries that already have a ban. Ten countries have taken the lead and given children the same legal protection from assault as adults.
	Sweden was the first to change its law, back in 1979. At the time of the reform, a booklet, Can you bring up children successfully without smacking and spanking?, was distributed to every household with children. Information about the new law was printed on milk cartons for two months in the hope that families would discuss it around the kitchen table. Public education is ongoing. There was resistance to the new law at the time in Sweden but now there is enormous support for it. The result has been that action taken by the social services has become increasingly voluntary and the number of children receiving out-of-home care has decreased by one-quarter.
	Other countries with a ban are Austria, Germany, Croatia, Israel, Cyprus, Latvia, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The evidence from those countries shows that prosecution is exceptional. Legal reform in the UK could be enforced in the same way as assaults against another adult; that is, "trivial assaults" would not be prosecuted. Reform in those countries has been written into civil or family law, not criminal law. Breaking the law on physical punishment does not carry an automatic penalty. It means that a criminal assault on a child is treated in the same way as an assault on an adult: prosecution has to be in the public interest as well as in the child's. Trivial assaults on adults do not get to the courts. Evidence from other countries shows that prosecutors act with equal restraint when considering cases involving physical punishment of children.
	One of the aims of reform has been to encourage a more preventive approach in child protection work by giving professionals and the public alike a surer basis on which to identify risk situations and to provide early support to parents. The Children are unbeatable! Alliance—an alliance of children's charities—has taken an important lead with its parent education initiative. The evidence from Europe and beyond shows that physical punishment legislation has played an important role in changing attitudes and encouraging parents to use non-violent and more effective methods of discipline. There is no evidence to show that it has any negative effects on society. On the contrary, a change in the law, in conjunction with public education, has contributed to an important shift in the way children are perceived and a reduction in the physical abuse of children. While the Minister is considering the many important points that have been raised in this excellent debate, I hope that he will reconsider the opinion of the Government expressed last year.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, all children and young people are vulnerable and all need material and emotional support. The tragic fact that many face hardship and exploitation makes this an emotive debate, and I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for introducing it today.
	I commend to your Lordships the tremendous work carried out by the numerous children's charities, many of which contributed to today's debate through their excellent briefing.
	It is clear that, while most children are brought up in a loving and safe environment, a small minority can be at risk from abuse and cruelty at home, in care and in schools, not least from bullying, from unknown sex offenders and as a result of contacts made over the Internet. My noble friend Lady Park gave the House a chilling insight into the violence towards children by paramilitaries.
	Protecting children and young people from poverty should be the starting point. Poverty can cause feelings of having been let down by "society"—society often being interpreted as the most visible manifestation of inequality. Too often children find themselves in hardship, which can lead to low aspirations, failure at school, and vulnerability to the social problems so evident in their wider community. Ensuring that every child gets the best possible start in life means ensuring that those in need of assistance receive their entitlement. That means a benefits system that is as simple as possible to understand and to benefit from.
	I want to touch briefly on the subject of sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young people. Last month was the closing date for public consultation on Setting the Boundaries. This sets out recommendations to Ministers for a new system of offences designed to protect children from abuse and exploitation and to enable abusers to be appropriately punished. We on these Benches agree with the principles underlying that review. We welcome moves to improve the protection of children by the criminal justice system, and we hope that the Government will bring forward legislation in the next Session.
	Sexual activity between adults and children is not acceptable. It seems clear that in order to protect young people from sexual exploitation, more services are required to help to prevent it and to help young people to escape if they are drawn in. Those most vulnerable are the youngsters who run away from home. Providing accommodation for those vulnerable children must become a priority if such exploitation is to stop. With young children of my own, I found the Barnardo's report, Whose Daughter Next?—Children abused through prostitution, pretty chilling reading.
	Last year the Home Secretary made a speech in which he stated his intention to make,
	"Britain the safest country in the world for children to access the internet".
	To that end, can the Minister confirm that the Government will bring forward legislation on grooming via the Internet with intent to abuse children?
	The role of local authorities in the protection of children has been on everyone's mind recently with the tragic cases of Lauren Wright and Victoria Climbié. The report into Lauren Wright's death, about which my noble friend Lady Seccombe spoke so movingly, has made several recommendations concerning the future child-protection training of health professionals.
	The Care Standards Act 2000 introduced the General Social Care Council, which will regulate the training of social workers. The Children's Rights Director for England will work from the National Care Standards Commission and will have a national overview of the rights of children receiving services regulated by the commission, such as children's homes, independent hospitals and fostering agencies.
	We are in yet another period of change. There will be more upheaval. Therefore, perhaps I may urge the Minister to look carefully at the systems which the Government intend to put in place. We need to ensure that an effective mechanism is introduced to provide a seamless and comprehensive system of training for both health and social services professionals so that they are able to deal with child protection matters in the most efficient way possible. After all, they are in the "front line" when signs of abuse become apparent. Do the Government intend care trusts to be the forum for managing such training, or will the new commissions announced in the plan oversee training matters? What will become of the General Social Care Council?
	It is easy to look at the reports from the two appalling cases that I mentioned and identify the problems in the system that led to the terrible deaths of those young people. But, as the NSPCC points out,
	"the management of child protection cases is the most complex and demanding task in the field of social care. It requires the collaboration of many disciplines, each bringing with them differing values, priorities, skills & resources".
	Therefore, I was dismayed at the shocking statistics that were revealed in a survey of 120 local authority branches by UNISON. Sixty per cent said that, even if all the vacant posts in social services were filled, there would still not be enough social workers to manage current workloads. Ninety-six per cent reported caseloads being too high, and 88 per cent of staff were "thrown in at the deep end".
	Clearly the bad press that social workers have received is having an effect on staff numbers. Not enough people are joining the workforce, and too many of those who do join leave after two or three years, exhausted and disillusioned. Can the Minister tell the House whether that is likely to continue? What is the take-up on new social services courses? Social services workers need support, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said; they do not need to be threatened with a big stick.
	However, a brief from the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services draws attention to the other side of the coin. That organisation has become alarmed at the damage caused by malicious complaints in childcare referrals and by the unquestioning attitude and incompetence of many of the professionals involved. It points to,
	"the devastating and long-lasting impact of such intervention on families",
	as was touched on by the noble Countess, Lady Mar. It also mentions the lack of adequate evidence base for social work interventions and the lack of respect shown to clients by many social workers.
	While many children are protected by the current system, children continue to die each week as a result of abuse or neglect. That is horrifying—even more so when one considers that most child abuse goes unreported. This should not be the case in a supposedly civilised society such as ours and we must not accept it as an unchangeable fact. Furthermore, the current cost of child abuse to statutory and voluntary organisations is £1 billion a year. Most of that is spent dealing with the aftermath of abuse rather than its prevention.
	So, what can be done? When any decision is made that affects the most vulnerable people in society, we should not lose sight of the guidance provided by children's organisations. In this field above all others, direct experience cannot be valued highly enough.
	The NSPCC suggests "putting children centre stage" by amending the Children Act 1989 to incorporate a "positive duty of care", similar to that in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord, on parents in England and Wales to promote the welfare of their children.
	The introduction of a new central register of all children who are at risk strikes me as a vital step in ensuring that vulnerable children do not "slip through the net". That is so important, as most child abuse goes unreported. Most children and young people do not have a trusted individual to help them. Only a small percentage disclose abuse when it is happening. Many vulnerable parents, who are responsible for the welfare of babies and small children, also have no one to turn to. Adequately funded helplines are one option and have been successful, particularly for those children who are living in their own homes. For children in care, the NSPCC suggests a statutory requirement for local authorities to provide advocacy services. Certainly, all children in care should have access to a trained adult to whom they can turn in times of need.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for initiating the debate, which I believe is necessary and gives us an opportunity to reflect. He started, rightly, by pointing out that one of the measures of a just society must be how it cares for its children and the extent to which it eradicates or seeks to eradicate child poverty and child abuse and maximises opportunities for a happy childhood for children, laying the foundations, one hopes, for a fulfilling life.
	We are clearly not there yet. Abuse is still a very real problem for many children in England today. I do not apologise for one second for stressing—as has been said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe—that we have to see this as a shared responsibility across society and not simply for the caring professions.
	We know that tens of thousands of children each year are referred to social services because of concerns about their welfare. Home Office research in 1993 showed that 110,000 adults in the UK had convictions for child offences against children at that time. The latest Home Office statistics show that 78 children were killed by their parents in 2001.
	Each year, about 160,000 children are referred to the child protection process and of those about 40,000 each year are the subject of child protection inquiries under Section 47 of the Children Act. Of those, 27,000 in the past year had their names added to the child protection register. Ninety-six per cent of those children remain at home and the majority of those separated from their families are swiftly reunited.
	The number of children on the child protection register has reduced in recent years and now stands at 26,800. An increasing proportion—now over three-quarters—of initial child protection conferences result in registration. Those are not just boring figures; they indicate the scale of the issues and, pace the challenges of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, the difficulties of always getting it right. I shall return to that point in a few moments.
	The statistics perhaps suggest that children who are the subject of child protection conferences are those who have considerable needs. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to the importance of that. However, it is also the case that fewer children remain on the child protection register for longer periods of time than was the case in the past because the problems that lead to registration being necessary are being addressed in many cases through more intensive early intervention following registration. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, mentioned policy driven by crisis intervention. While, clearly, there was a sequence of significant inquiries, more than 400,000 children in need each year who are not placed on the register are being cared for by social services departments or receiving services from them. Social services are doing much more than simply addressing those who are on the register.
	Several noble Lords addressed the importance of a positive and preventive agenda, not simply a crisis intervention one. I strongly support that. It is fundamental to the Government's broader strategy to improve the life chances of children and to give strong support to families. Action to tackle social exclusion lies at the heart of the Government's policy commitment to end child poverty within 20 years. We need services for children that no longer act simply as a safety net against failure, but as a springboard or success.
	There are four major cross-government programmes to achieve that: Sure Start, the Children's Fund, Connexions and Quality Protects. However, time does not allow me to go into detail. Quality Protects will provide £885 million over five years to transform the management and delivery of children's services and could not be more important. The programme sets out clear objectives for children's services. In addition, the House will be well aware that we have for the first time a Minister for young people, that we have established the national rights director for children, that we have a children and young people unit and that the Department of Health is promoting and developing a national service framework for children.
	The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, stressed the importance of eliminating child poverty by 2010. The Government remain committed to that objective. The Government have brought forward a raft of measures and initiatives to deal not just with the crisis end but to try to increase the potential for parents to succeed at parenting. That must be a better option than our intervention when they have failed to do so.
	However, as a number of noble Lords stressed, the improvement of the performance of social services is, as always, a fundamental component of that. The Government are striving to improve the quality and performance of social services. I shall not go into detail on funding, but the House will share with me the pleasure at seeing the 6 per cent real terms increase in funding—that is 9 per cent in cash terms—that will follow on from 2003-04, not just for one year but for three years. So there is the prospect of a significant year-on-year expansion of funding. No doubt, it will never be enough, but one could not criticise the direction of travel.
	The Government have also established the National Care Standards Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor, had the grace to recognise, the General Social Care Council, which will continue, and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, which will do exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Astor, were hoping. It will be a repository to identify good practice. It will identify what works and will seek to promote that positively rather than have autopsies on failure.
	Social services recruitment is fundamental. We have to increase the number of talented people going into social work. Is it surprising that after the sequence of massively publicised criticisms of the profession people are reluctant to go into it? There has to be a positive agenda to value and respect the importance of this work and to improve it for the future. The Government have promoted and funded a national recruitment campaign and have set the target to increase the number of applicants for social work training by 5,000 by 2004.
	There is also a strategy to improve social work education and training. The House may be aware of the post-qualification childcare award which will be established so that there will be a high quality, post-professional qualification for people in this work. From 2003 the current social work qualification—the diploma in social work—will move to a three-year degree level course which one hopes will confirm the professionalism and seriousness of this work.
	Improving children's safeguards also requires the ability to inspect that things are going well. Again, time does not allow me to report in detail on the quality of the work being done by the Social Services Inspectorate, building on the work that was done under previous governments in this respect. But there is a much more systematic and thorough system of inspection and monitoring of performance in social services departments than was possible in the past. That both allows people to see a benchmark of where they are good and where they are not so good and alerts them to the potential of how and where they can improve rather than just being critical of them.
	I turn to some of the contributions made by noble Lords. The description given by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, of child abuse by paramilitaries was chilling. We have heard parts of that before, but to hear it put across in that way was sobering. Clearly, the Government condemn such actions by whomever they are perpetrated. Clearly, dreadful things have been done by both sides in Northern Ireland during the troubles. That can lead to a brutalisation of the people on whom they have been perpetrated. One fears for the brutalisation of a generation of children in that respect. That is why progress on sustaining the peace process in Northern Ireland is fundamental to moving away from those horrors.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, spoke powerfully about bullying and action to address it. The Government have taken a range of initiatives. Again time is tight, but there is Strategies on bullying: Don't suffer it in silence. It tries to encourage parents and children to shout out when they are being bullied rather than to think that in some way it is because of their own inadequacy. The Government have funded Parentline Plus which gives free help to the parents of bullied victims.
	A number of noble Lords spoke about the importance of listening to children. That is not least important in this particular area of bullying. I think that the right reverend Prelate spoke of the importance in this respect of allowing children's participation and of having anti-bullying policies at schools which are effective strategies rather than just paper ones. We strongly agree that action, both in schools, by government and by teachers to address bullying is crucial.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford spoke challengingly about the problems of cultural isolation for immigrants. It is easy to be sobered and depressed by the scale of that challenge. For 2,000 years we have been assimilating immigrants with varying degrees of success. Therefore, this must not be seen as a sudden or new problem, yet it is a very serious one for society to face up to. Again, listening to young people, perhaps particularly young people from ethnic minority communities, at this time is crucially important.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked when will it all end. That is the challenge for us all. Clearly, for those of us who can remember Maria Colwell and Jasmine Beckford and the sequence of names, it is sobering 30 years later to be aware of these matters.
	I shall write to the noble Baroness with regard to the registration of small children's homes and nannies not being regulated. I agree strongly with her comments about the assimilation of good practice and research. I referred previously to that important component of the Government's and social services and local authorities' strategies. It is a joint partnership, not simply the Government telling local government what to do and how important that way of addressing issues is.
	We then had three very interesting contributions about how the systems work in a devolved context. We had speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about Wales, by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, about Scotland and by the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, about Northern Ireland. In a sense, the nature of devolution will produce differences. Yet every time there is a difference one should not rush to get automatic conformity—as if there is something wrong if things are being done differently. That is not necessarily so. Rather it is an opportunity to recognise that we must do some learning and comparisons. I think that that was the central thrust of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. I endorse his remarks about better and more imaginative co-operation between administrations to identify what works, where and why, and how we can learn from each other. That seems to me to be good sense. He said that this cannot be run from London. That is good sense also.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, made a point about the Carlisle report. It was a report to the National Assembly of Wales. We shall of course read it with great interest and consider whether there are any lessons for England. We shall be in dialogue with our colleagues in Wales about that issue.
	The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, spoke about Scotland. I do not think that the Government are likely to amend the Children Act 1989 in line with the Children (Scotland) Act, probably for two reasons. The central point is that in many ways the concept of parental responsibility is already set out in the Children Act, if not quite in the same terms as in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Nevertheless, it states that parents have central responsibility. Equally—if I recollect rightly—the 1963 Act had as its central thrust not simply to take children away from their parents but to support parents to be better parents of their children. That theme, as the House recognises, is still central to childcare practice. It is to support parents to be better rather than simply thinking that institutional removal practices are the widespread solution.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, spoke from her experience as a magistrate and with the NSPCC about the wider context. I very much endorse the importance of children having the opportunity to play outdoors in secure environments and to socialise through play rather than simply being trapped. I recollect that well from my wicked past as a director of housing, which I shall not go into. She is right that reports of cruelty are failures for us all if we have not reported it when we should have done.
	I turn to the noble Countess, Lady Mar. She laid down some very serious challenges to both the Government and to the profession. I agree with her that there must have been cases when social workers have exceeded their responsibilities. There must be occasions when they have made wrong judgments. There must be cases when they have perhaps not explained to a parent adequately what they are doing or why they are doing it or had a proper ending to an investigation. Yet it came across—maybe I misheard it—as if that was the generality of practice.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, no, it is not. I did say that in a few cases it was the odd rotten apple in the barrel that spoiled it for the rest of us.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am glad to be reminded of that. I think that while we must use worst practice as a goad to improve, it is crucial that we do not denigrate this profession any further. While being tough on criticisms of failure, we have to affirm—as I think was put across extremely well by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, based on her experience—that there must be ways to pick up this profession, to value and improve it for the future.
	I shall not go into detail in responding to that matter. But a social services department cannot just take a child away and place it under a court order without going to court. Parents are represented in court in those circumstances. There will be times when parents will suffer from that process. But one cannot be hesitant about investigating potential areas of abuse against children. It is the fundamental responsibility of social services to try to see if things are going wrong. That is why records have to be retained on file—in case there are subsequent occasions which, when one sees the pattern, build up to something more serious than if the incidents were seen in isolation.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, drew attention to the reports that will be in tomorrow's paper on Operation Magenta by Greater Manchester Police and the Hertfordshire Police. That operation was a proactive crack down on Internet paedophilia. While I do not know the details and cannot comment because no doubt they are sub judice, one commends the proactive action of the police in that it signals that they will not be passive but are going to be really active in trying to stamp this out. One hopes that that is driven through fairly, justly, but with great vigour.
	I share the pleasure of the noble Baroness at the task force on child protection chaired by Beverley Hughes. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, raised the point. It is certainly seriously looking at whether legislation should be enacted to tackle paedophile grooming activities. That is one of the issues under active consideration.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, gave a powerful and eloquent advocacy of why she believed parents should not smack their children. Clearly, it is illegal for parents to cause damage to their children. We are talking about smacking or what is called "reasonable chastisement". I shall read what she has said. But I shall not announce today that there is about to be an immediate change of government policy. I know that she will not be surprised at that.
	I shall not add to what I said earlier about the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. This is not simple work, as I recollect from talking to colleagues. It is not a simple matter to identify what is going on. It needs extremely skilled judgment, particularly when also making judgments about whether it is better to keep a child at home or take him to a place of safety. I am glad that I have not had to make some of those judgments. We clearly must support professional staff in getting better at that. Part of doing so is undoubtedly data exchange and part relates to the care professions being better at working together. I think that they are getting better at that, but it is not yet perfect by any means. One should pay tribute not just to social workers but also to health visitors, GPs and the police for their work in this respect. It is a collective effort.
	What still needs to be done? Sometimes quite clearly the child protection system breaks down, as in the tragic case of Victoria Climbié. We shall, I am sure, debate the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, when he publishes it. I very much hope that we shall do so.
	I am clearly out of time before time, which is the story of one's life. In short, we must work at reducing the propensity to fail as much as at crisis intervention. That requires society and government to get better at identifying the propensity of risk factors and at creating strategies which increase parents' ability to succeed, rather than simply intervening when they fail.

Lord Eames: My Lords, when I chose the wording of the Motion, I realised the wide-ranging nature of the words that I chose. In that respect, none of us in the House has been disappointed. I should like to thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. I found it a moving experience to listen to some of the personal reflections that were offered.
	I sometimes hear it said that we must safeguard children because they are the next generation. If anything has been underlined for me tonight, it is that they are equally a part of this generation. Some years ago, my Church, the Anglican Church in Ireland—the Church of Ireland—was deciding on a title for its good practice document for the protection of children. We had a wide-ranging debate—church committees are like that. Eventually, we ended up not with the title, "Safeguarding children" but the title, "Safeguarding trust". That has been the tenor, too, of our debate tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Northern Ireland Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2002

Lord Grocott: rose to move, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 10th April be approved [25th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move that the Northern Ireland Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2002 be approved. On 11th March this House approved the draft Criminal Injuries Compensation (Northern Ireland) Order 2002. The order has since been made and those parts that provide the Secretary of State with a power to make a criminal injuries compensation scheme have been brought into effect. The order determines that any scheme made under it must be approved by a resolution of each House. A draft scheme was laid before Parliament on 10th April and I now seek the approval of this House to its provisions.
	This legislative change stems from an independent review of criminal injuries compensation in Northern Ireland carried out by a team led by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield. The order determines that the Secretary of State shall make arrangements to pay compensation to victims of criminal injury and describes what those arrangements should consist of. It provides for the establishment of a Northern Ireland criminal injuries scheme with compensation for pain and suffering assessed on the basis of a tariff of injuries.
	It also provides that there should be additional compensation in more serious cases for loss of earnings and special expenses and for dependency and bereavement in fatal cases. Arrangements must also include a provision for the review of decisions and for a right of appeal against review decisions to an independent body of adjudicators.
	The major change to the way compensation is assessed in Northern Ireland is the introduction of a set tariff of injury values to compensate for pain and suffering. That change follows the broad thrust of the Bloomfield report. The principle of adopting a tariff was agreed when the order was approved. The scheme provides the detail of that tariff. The threshold for compensation is set at £1,000, as it is in Great Britain. The maximum payable is £280,000, compared to £250,000 in the rest of the UK. The difference in values reflects the historical and jurisdictional differences governing the payment of compensation over the years.
	As well as a tariff amount of compensation for the victim's pain, suffering and loss of amenity, in cases where a victim is incapacitated for more than 28 weeks, compensation is available for loss of earnings and other special expenses. In effect, that means that the principle of individual assessment for all heads of damage apart from pain and suffering applies under the proposed tariff scheme as it does under the current common law-based arrangements.
	Concern has been expressed that in the proposed new scheme loss of earnings for the first 28 weeks is not compensatable. That is correct, in so far as a separate head of damage is not available, but all tariff awards include a token amount—as they do in Great Britain—towards pecuniary loss for that period.
	I turn to describe the provisions of the new scheme that specifically broaden the eligibility base and so bring more victims of violent crime within the ambit of the arrangements. As a result of concerns expressed by victims in the initial round of consultation with the independent review, a new bereavement support payment replaces the old bereavement award and will increase the number of people eligible for such awards in fatal cases. The value of the award has also increased from a total of £7,500 for each case to £12,000 for each qualifying applicant.
	Claims for mental injury were also the subject of debate during consultation. To respond to concerns raised, the Bloomfield report recommended that, for people who were not physically present at the incident where their loved ones were killed or injured, compensation should be made available to secondary victims on the basis of their relationship with the primary victim and the proper diagnosis of psychological damage stemming from the incident. The proposed scheme includes that change.
	Eligibility for mental injury has also been extended to those who may in a non-professional capacity become involved in helping in the aftermath of an incident or those who, in the normal course of their professional rescue work, find themselves in exceptional danger, or fear that someone with whom they have a close relationship of love and affection has been killed or seriously injured.
	Many victims also raised concerns that cases could not be reopened and that the time limit to make a claim was too inflexible. To respond to those concerns, further relaxation in the eligibility conditions will permit cases to be reopened in certain circumstances and time limits for making a claim will also be made more flexible. That flexibility is being introduced because the statutory time limit currently in place, which allows a maximum of three years to make a claim—from the age of 18 in cases of childhood injury—has led to unfairness and inequity in the distribution of compensation.
	That is especially the case with adults who have been the victims of sexual offences in childhood and who, for very understandable reasons, have not pursued the crime committed against them until they were over the age of 21. They were unable by that stage to claim compensation. However, the new flexible time limits will not help them. As a result, and because of the overwhelming moral argument supporting their case, the Government have responded by taking what is an almost unprecedented step. We have attached to the new scheme a provision to allow those unfortunate victims who in the past found themselves on the wrong side of legislative time limits a second chance to access compensation for their injuries.
	That provision will mean that an adult who was the victim of sexual abuse as a child and who has been unable to pursue a successful compensation claim because he or she was over 21 before being in a position to do so can apply. It will not permit applications that may have been refused for other reasons. I hope that your Lordships will agree that the retrospective lifting of the mandatory time limit is an important change, and one which will rectify for many people an inequity in the previous legislation.
	Another significant change to the eligibility conditions in the proposed new scheme means that all convictions—for terrorist-related offences or other crime—will be treated in the same way, as already happens under the scheme in Great Britain. The criteria determining how a conviction will be treated will be based on two factors: the seriousness of the crime, as shown by the length of sentence; and the period which has elapsed since the sentence was passed.
	I turn now to the final change of significance: the review and appeal process. What we have adopted for the new scheme reflects the arrangements in Great Britain and addresses criticisms by victims of the current court-based appeal process. Applicants can ask for initial decisions of the Compensation Agency to be reviewed. If that does not lead to agreement, there is a right of appeal within the scheme to a body of adjudicators. The scheme establishes that body as the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel for Northern Ireland.
	Those arrangements will replace the current right of appeal to the courts. The Government appreciate and understand that there has been concern in some quarters in Northern Ireland about that change and the removal from the scheme of legal costs in successful cases. Nevertheless, the new arrangements will offer victims a dedicated appeals service and quicker resolution. In addition, in response to concerns about progressing a claim—particularly to appeal stage—without legal costs being met under the scheme, the order provides that a body should be designated to provide advice, assistance and support to persons seeking compensation. As recommended by Bloomfield, the Government have asked Victim Support Northern Ireland to take on that role, and it has accepted. It is ideally placed to fulfil the role, as its counterparts do in Great Britain.
	The proposed scheme makes significant improvements to the eligibility criteria for compensation and greatly simplifies and hastens the process by which it is awarded. However, it would be wrong to underwrite a scheme that has not yet been tested. The Government are therefore committing the new process to close monitoring and review of its effectiveness for the initial introductory period. Reports on the operation of the scheme will be sought at quarterly intervals. If problems are identified, it will be the Government's responsibility to ensure that they are rectified.
	I hope that the House is persuaded that the proposed changes to the way in which compensation is paid in Northern Ireland are genuinely in the interests of the victims of criminal violence. If the House approves the draft scheme, it will be implemented on 1st May. The Government firmly believe that such a step will achieve a better, more equitable, speedier and simpler process for victims to access compensation. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 10th April be approved [25th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Grocott.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that clear presentation and interpretation of what, we believe, is an excellent scheme. It is based on some excellent work by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield and his team. Sir Kenneth was a great friend of mine and of my family for many years—he still is, I hope.
	On the basis of what Sir Kenneth has done, the Government have moved in a sensible and comprehensive direction. The Minister has just talked about the eligibility period and the lengthening of the time required, with particular reference to sexual offences against children in years gone by, such as are happening today. That will make a major difference. The overall management of criminal injuries claims will be considerably fairer and more efficient under the scheme. We hope that it will save a considerable amount of money—as was said in another place—that will, we hope, be used sensibly.
	I have one or two possible criticisms, one of which the Minister mentioned. The scheme takes no account, in certain cases, of the first 28 weeks after an injury, during which there is no compensation. Most of that, I think, will be covered in one way or another by other forms of claim and care. I hope that the Minister can assure me that that is correct.
	There is one other small point, which was also raised in another place, relating to those who are covered by their own personal insurance. It is right that the state should not pay someone who is already able to claim from insurance, but it might be reasonable that some part of that premium be included in any claim that is made.
	It is, in principle, an excellent scheme. We welcome it. We also welcome the fact that it is not a closed scheme and that the Government will monitor it. It is a draft scheme, open to changes that can be made from experience. That is particularly useful in Northern Ireland, where everything moves quickly—sideways, upwards, downwards, backwards, forwards and, sometimes, all at the same time. It is wise to keep the scheme open and monitor it to see how it goes for a few years.
	On these Benches, we support the scheme and thank those who have been involved—with Sir Kenneth Bloomfield and later in the process—for the work that they have done. I thank the Minister for bringing the scheme to the House.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the scheme. We welcome it strongly. It will make for a simpler, fairer and speedier process. It will also bring Northern Ireland provision roughly—more than roughly—in line with that for the rest of the UK, which means that we will have common standards throughout the jurisdiction. I particularly welcome the lifting of the mandatory time limits in cases involving the sexual abuse of children. As the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said, that is, unfortunately, especially welcome at this time.
	We look forward to the day when criminal injuries compensation matters can be devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. That will be another landmark in Northern Ireland's journey towards becoming a normal liberal democracy.

Lord Laird: My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking the Minister for his explanation of the scheme. Broadly speaking, I can say that there is much to be commended in the scheme, but I want to talk about some issues of concern. I shall not take too long.
	I am delighted by the concept of the review of the scheme. One of the aspects covered by that review must be the tariffs themselves. I urge the Government to try a neater solution to that issue and index-link the tariff scheme, so that there is an automatic move up the scale year by year, according to the rate of inflation.
	I join the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, in paying tribute to the former distinguished head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield. His report was concerned about procedural shortcomings in the existing system of criminal injury compensation. The report recommended tariffs for minor injuries only and a continuation of court-based systems for the more major criminal injuries.
	I am concerned about the process of consultation on the scheme into which the Government entered in the past few years. There was consultation with the ad hoc committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly which unanimously rejected the proposals. Many in the current Government are enthusiastic about devolution, yet when the scheme was referred to the Assembly the proposals were totally rejected. So much for that type of devolution.
	I suggest that the Government might have given a commitment to wait and to introduce the scheme until after the 2003 Assembly elections. I join the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, in hoping that some day soon this type of legislation will fall under the remit of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
	The Law Society in Northern Ireland also rejected the tariff scheme. Despite the lengthy four-year period of consultation, the society was hardly consulted. The Minister in another place had only one meeting with the Law Society. I believe that the Government's consultation process could have been better organised.
	One of the arguments for the tariff scheme is that it will cut the £5 million going to the legal profession in legal costs. Will the Minister define what is meant by "legal costs for the legal profession"? I understand that the average amount paid to solicitors for the type of case in question is between £500 and £600 per case, which is hardly lucrative. The proposals will mean that the 500 or so solicitors in the Province will be replaced in such work by a small number of assessors. This is one matter which must constantly be kept under review.
	In conclusion, I accept much that is in the scheme, but I am concerned about the issues that I have mentioned.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I appreciate the fact that there has been a strong welcome for the scheme from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benches and from the noble Lord, Lord Laird. I shall try to deal with his concerns, but he said that he welcomed many aspects of the scheme.
	The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said that it is a fairer and more efficient system. He raised the question of loss of earnings in the first 28 weeks. The period of 28 weeks follows precisely the arrangements in Great Britain and it coincides with the period which attracts statutory sick pay and for which many employers, particularly in the public sector, continue to pay a full salary to their employees. Furthermore, if we look at how systems operated in the past, we see that in practice only a small fraction of awards under the existing arrangements are for loss of earnings. However, I emphasise that the period is in line with the rest of the UK.
	I turn to insurance claims, which is a more difficult issue. The Government believe that it is wrong to use taxpayers' money to provide an award of special expenses for health requirements where a private health insurance policy has already paid out to meet a specific health need. The new scheme removes that anomaly and brings Northern Ireland into line with Great Britain.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, will recognise, if there were to be any change in a scheme which allowed for the cost of premiums, that would involve a change in the rest of the UK and it would be a matter far wider than my responsibilities. However, in practice, the new scheme will provide for any difference between the level of the cost of care provided for under an insurance scheme and the actual costs incurred by a person in receipt of the care. Therefore, provided that the provision is reasonable, there is provision for that difference to be made good.
	I greatly welcome the support given by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and in particular the emphasis that he and the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, put on the changes made in respect of victims of child abuse. That has been welcomed throughout the House. It is a simpler and fairer system. In the tradition of his Benches, he expressed his strong support for devolution and said that he looked forward to the day when further devolved powers would be possible. I can say to the noble Lord that the Government also look forward to that day. Echoing a point made in part by the noble Lord, Lord Laird, the Government look forward to the time when responsibility for reserved matters such as this important area of policy can be devolved. There is no disagreement on that point.
	I shall deal as well as I can with the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Laird. He is absolutely right to say that we need to be able to review the system and I can confirm that I have already given an undertaking to that effect. In practice, the scheme in Britain was reviewed in 1999, some three years after it came into operation. Changes to the tariff levels were made in 2001. However, in a sense I have already given a stronger assurance than that by saying that Ministers will look at the scheme regularly to see how it is working.
	The scheme as set out does not follow precisely in all respects the Bloomfield report, but it does follow its thrust. I am sure that a close examination of the details will substantiate my words.
	The noble Lord mentioned consultation in respect of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He was quite right to point out that objections were expressed, but the Government strongly believe that this is a better scheme than the one currently in place and that it is in the interest of victims that the new scheme should be introduced as rapidly as possible. We very much hope that we shall be able to bring in the scheme on 1st May, should noble Lords agree to the provisions before the House. It is our intention to introduce it as quickly as possible, precisely because it was clear from all the consultations that took place that the victims themselves were looking for a speedier and more intelligible resolution of their claims.
	The noble Lord mentioned consultation with the Law Society in Northern Ireland. Such consultation has taken place. My honourable friend in the other place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, has both corresponded regularly with and met representatives of the society. Consultation has taken place throughout the review process.
	Finally, I turn to the question of costs. Under the current scheme, applicants' legal costs have risen from an average of £574 in 1996-97 to £660 in 2000-01, an increase of 17 per cent. Overall, applicants' legal costs have been running at some £4.7 million. Instead of being spent as at present, we feel that that money would be far better used as part of a compensation scheme.
	In conclusion, I want to re-emphasise the point I made about review and the mood of the Government in recommending this proposal to the House. We intend to look at the scheme as it proceeds. However, we believe that it represents a significant step forward and I hope that noble Lords will agree to it.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Borough Freedom (Family Succession) Bill [HL]

Lord Mustill: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Over recent months, this House has been preoccupied with great affairs of state, both international and domestic. Indeed, this evening the House heard a thoughtful debate on an issue of great social importance. It may seem inappropriate to take up even a short time at the end of the day on a miniature Bill which might at first glance seem both obscure—it is not easy to read—and trifling. However, I suggest that, even if the Bill is on a small scale, it is not trifling. If it finds favour, it will eliminate a gender anomaly which should not exist. As to obscurity, I shall endeavour to penetrate its language under five brief headings.
	The headings are as follows: first, what are borough freedoms; secondly, what is their legal status; thirdly, what is the anomaly which the Bill seeks to correct; fourthly, why should this be done by Parliament rather than in some other way; and, fifthly, what will be the effect of the Bill?
	First, I turn to the borough freedoms. One has to go back to medieval times to understand this ancient institution. It is probably the oldest legal institution that exists in the United Kingdom today. The control of local trade and local government was in the hands of a body of freemen, so called because they were free of the restrictions on trade and other activities which applied to persons outside the liberties. Parliamentary suffrage was also limited to freemen, who were the burghers of the boroughs. These privileges became a source of abuse and were sharply restricted by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and by the opening-up of the parliamentary suffrage which was going on at the same time.
	It would have been possible at any time during the past 160 years for Parliament simply to abolish the freedoms, but it never chose to do so. Instead it recognised and preserved their status by a succession of Acts of Parliament, beginning with the 1835 Act and continuing until the Local Government Act 1972.
	By the present day the tangible benefits of the membership of a freedom have been reduced, so much so that in some boroughs they are non-existent. I need not take up time by giving illustrations of the modest benefits which exist because all the freedoms are different and it would take a long time to describe them across the board.
	Nowadays, the reason people still wish to become freemen is not personal gain but because it identifies the member with the local community in a way which is much more intimate, continuous and long-standing than the exercise of the local government franchise or election to local councils. The freemen are not competitors of councillors and aldermen. The two systems exist in parallel and in harmony.
	Secondly, what is the legal status of the freedoms? They are creatures of ancient custom—very ancient indeed. As I said, they are probably the oldest legal institutions in this country. They are creatures of custom not of statute. Although statute has recognised their existence, it has not created them or provided mechanisms enabling the freemen to bring them up to date by their own consent. Some ancient charters contained such mechanisms but, for reasons with which I shall not trouble the House as it would take some time to explain and would not be very illuminating, those powers have not survived the successive reforms of local government. So these ancient customs remain frozen in the state in which they were when they first came into existence hundreds of years ago.
	Thirdly, what is the wrong that the Bill seeks to remedy? The answer lies in the fact that the customs are frozen in their ancient forms. Since changes were made at the time of great reforms 160 years ago, persons can only become freemen by descent from a parent freeman, and in a substantial proportion of boroughs this descent can take place only in the male line. Daughters are thus barred, for no valid reason, from the benefits—largely intangible but benefits none the less—of succeeding to this ancient status.
	Fourthly, assuming this to be wrong—and I hope the House will assume it to be wrong—why take up the time of Parliament in putting it right? Are there no other ways in which the courts could perhaps provide a solution with the aid of the anti-discrimination provisions of the human rights legislation? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be "no". I say "seems" because the legal status of these institutions is so strange and is lost in the mists of history. I can say, however, that legal research suggests that even through the courts the remedy is at the very best speculative and almost certainly non-existent. So it falls back on Parliament to put the matter right. That is why I propose this Second Reading.
	What is the effect of the Bill? Primarily, as will appear from its wording, to insert a provision enabling the daughter of a freeman to be admitted as a freeman of a city or town notwithstanding her gender. This will put right across the board, and once and for all, the need for each borough freedom individually to embark on the costly and highly speculative task of trying to find some solution of a different nature.
	In Clause 1(2) of the Bill there is a correction of the absurdity that a person can only be a freeman if born within the precincts of the borough. There is a brief reference to the fact that the Act does not bear on the City of London, the freemen of which are governed by a completely different regime. This Bill has nothing to do with honorary freemen. When one reads in the newspapers that someone has been made a freeman of a borough, that is an entirely different matter, with which this Bill is not concerned at all.
	There it is. This is a modest measure. Thrones will not tumble whatever its fate, but gender discrimination is wrong. The fact that it is not a great matter does not prevent it from being wrong and it is something which, in the absence of any other means, Parliament can fittingly put right. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Mustill.)

Lord Addington: My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord on bringing this Bill before us. It made me begin thinking about certain memorable occasions in the past when this House discussed the hereditary principle. I declare almost an interest, being one of the surviving hereditary Peers—one of the "preserved in aspic" brigade, as it were. I have an older sister and the question has been raised, "Why should you be there and I am not?" There are those wonderful acrimonious moments that one can only have in families.
	As regards the Bill itself, I agree that there is no reason for resisting it. Presumably, it refers to the Norman idea of preserving estates and things in one place, which we have officially got rid of. The idea that daughters should not be allowed to inherit has been done away with over time. And the hereditary principle has been finally dealt with in this Chamber.
	Whether freemen of the borough still have a place in modern society is not addressed in the Bill. The principle of whether such an anomaly should be allowed to continue is still there and if it is primarily honorific we should be able to say yes to that. I cannot see any reason why the principle should not be endorsed, but whether Parliament should spend more time on it than a short debate of this kind is open to discussion. I shall not try to do any more of the Government's job than that. It is an interesting example of how history tends to continue unless one gets rid of it, and that is always very true in legislation.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mustill, for introducing this Bill and for his very eloquent and interesting explanation of its purpose and the wrong that it seeks to remedy. In essence, it would end primogeniture so that where the son of a freeman may claim to be admitted as a freeman, the daughter of a freeman may likewise claim to be admitted. It would remove any requirement that may exist limiting admission to the freedom of persons born within a borough's boundaries. As we have heard, the Bill does not seek to reintroduce admissions by gift or purchase. Nor does it deal with honorary freemen or freemen of the City of London.
	This is a simple Bill, which addresses a small point. That said, it contains an important principle in that it confronts and removes an element of unjustified sex discrimination from the Local Government Act 1972. Her Majesty's Opposition are wholly supportive of the Bill and we wish it well in what we hope will be a rapid passage both in your Lordships' House and in another place.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mustill, said, the Bill seeks to modernise succession rights to the title of freemen by providing that the title and the property rights that go with it can be handed down through the female line as well as the male. As the noble and learned Lord indicated, there are two similar titles: that of freeman and honorary freeman. Both are dealt with by the Local Government Act 1972.
	Section 249(5) of the 1972 Act provides that a London borough or a district council having the status of city, borough or royal borough can admit any person to be an honorary freeman of that place. The decision is entirely at the discretion of the council which can make any person an honorary freeman regardless of gender, race, age or disability provided that the individual is a person of distinction or, in the opinion of the council, has rendered eminent service to the locality. The title is honorific and, beyond the distinction, it confers no other rights or duties. It is bestowed for life only and cannot be inherited by the individual's heirs.
	The noble and learned Lord's Bill does not affect the right of these local authorities to bestow honorary freedom on individuals of either gender. Instead the Bill deals solely with the more ancient right to be a freeman of a town or city. That right was intimately bound with the rights of admission to the guilds and, in its present form, is both an inherited right and one that can confer property rights on the title holder.
	As the noble and learned Lord said, it was the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 which first reorganised the governance of local authorities along modern lines. In doing so, it swept away the existing arrangements which gave freemen special rights in the election and governance of the pre-1835 corporate boroughs. As a class, freemen of the old corporate boroughs also enjoyed the exclusive right to benefit from the rents and profits of certain corporate land and property. The 1835 Act preserved those rights and since 1835 successive local government Acts, including the 1972 Act, have reconfirmed the position.
	The 1835 Act and its successors also froze the basis on which a person can be admitted to a freeman. They invariably provide for a right of succession so that a freeman can pass on his title and property to his heirs. However, reflecting their antecedents they are often based on patrimony and cannot, therefore, be passed from a father to his daughter. It is this anachronism which the Borough Freedom (Family Succession) Bill seeks to remedy. It does so by amending Section 248 of the Local Government Act 1972 which reconfirmed the right of freemen first preserved under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.
	I hope that noble Lords find this explanation helpful. The Government will not take a formal view for or against the Bill. We shall take no steps to oppose its progress through your Lordships' House.

Lord Mustill: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for giving their attention to this modest matter. I do not think that I should take up time by making further comment beyond what I have already said. I invite your Lordships to read the Bill a second time.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at twenty-six minutes before ten o'clock.